Hitchhiker
by Shezan
Summary: 12y pre-ANH. Lieutenant Thrawn, the only alien in the Imperial Navy, recently brought back from an empty planet, has to make his way up the ranks and prove himself to the Empire,not to mention First Officer Piett and visiting HoloNet star Wynssa Starflare
1. A Bith Waitress in a Jizz Bar

     Title: Hitchhiker 

**     Author: **Shezan  -  shezan@gmx.net****

**     Summary: **Young Thrawn  story, 12 years before ANH. After Captain Parck discovered a talented alien on an inhabited planet, and brought him back to Coruscant, Thrawn still had to make his way up in the Imperial Navy... Uses background provided in Timothy Zahn's story _Mist Encounter_, as well as Michael A. Stackpole's _In the Empire's Service_ and _Blood and Honor_.****

**     Disclaimer: **These characters belong to George Lucas, Tim Zahn and Mike Stackpole. George, don't sue me, I ain't got the money. And I'm spending whatever I have on SW toys anyway.****

****

**     * * ***

     HITCHHIKER

     * * *

     "I don't like this."

     "Like they'll ask our opinion next time."

     "Look, she's a major holostar, she makes millions of credits. Why does she need to thumb a lift on a Star Destroyer?"

     "Because it's more fun, that's why."

     "Fun for who? We get all those spittle-and-polish extra troop reviews, and this is going to delay all leaves by at least two weeks."

     "Fun for Captain Corlag. He gets to show us off and to dine with her every night."

     "_Every_ night? Fun for him, definitely not fun for her. Unless she's got lousy taste."

     "What do I know what Coruscant holostars like or don't like? Pass me that brush."

     "Hey! That's my clothesbrush. Get your shoe brushes from your locker."

     "You're such a wuss."

     "Give me that!"

     "Come get it--if you can!"

     "You Bantha dropp--"

     "Giving up already? Knew you couldn't knock out a Bith waitress in a jizz bar."

     "Sshhh! The freak's back."

     * * *

     Lieutenant Per Theel _hated_ the way the newest junior officer had of turning up in their dorm, or indeed anywhere else, without a sound. Suddenly, he was there with no more warning than--

     "I believe that's my bunk," the freak said, in his infuriatingly posh accent, as if anyone could believe he came from one the best Core families. What a joke.

     "Oh yeah? So what?"

     "And I need my dress uniform from the locker behind you."

     "So what's that to me?"

     "You may choose to be late for the bridge review. I don't intend to be."

     "Look, buddy--" Theel started, but his friend Rory Mikam was already up on his stockinged feet, grabbing his half-polished boots. "Prak it, Theel, we gotta be there in seven minutes!"

     "Six," the freak said, and there was no mistaking the cool satisfaction in his voice. _One day,_ Theel thought, _I'm going to punch that smug smile from your--_

     But there indeed was no time. Theel shrugged himself into his well-brushed olive-green dress-jacket, hurriedly checking insignia, rank cylinder and regulation regimental pips; running a quick comb through his short chestnut hair. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the new junior lieutenant take the extra few seconds to hang his undress jacket with precise gestures before pulling the other one out of his locker. Yet another dry twig onto the smoldering fire of his resentment -- the new man never seemed to look less than impeccable, the crease in his regulation trousers vibroblade-sharp, never one blue-black hair out of place...

     Freak.

     * * *

     The three lieutenants piled out of the dorm and into the nearby turbolift. 34 levels to the bridge. Mikam's ears popped, and he swallowed reflexively, casting a glance at the rapidly changing digits. Their flicker backlit the new man's impassive profile: high brow, slightly aquiline nose, thin but well-defined lips, firm jaw. There were no lines on that smooth skin, but Mikam suddenly sensed that the other lieutenant was older than either of them. Although how anyone could tell—

     The lift doors swooshed open, and the three junior lieutenants sprang out and up the stairs to the main bridge. A small group of olive-garbed officers had already gathered on either side of the starboard crew pit. Captain Corlag, at the forward viewport, could be seen talking to a slight figure in a jade-green dress, blonde hair to the shoulders. Mikam instinctively checked the time at his wristcom, and stumbled on a step, feeling himself trip with a hollowing in his stomach. At the same instant, his left elbow was grasped in a steel grip, righting him up without breaking their pace. They'd reached the top of the stairs. Surprised, Mikam turned to meet the new man's strange eyes.

     "Er, thanks."

     "Don't mention it. Better take our places."

     * * *

     Wynssa Starflare, the HoloNet star, and Captain Corlag's personal guest on the "Empire's Revenge", pasted a smile on her beautifully made-up lips, followed the captain's expansive gesture to take in the spectacle of rows of impeccably groomed officers, and inwardly groaned. Zilkha, her agent, had insisted that she seize the opportunity offered by the Navy officer who'd besieged her dressing-trailer after he'd discovered she was shooting a new holodrama on Chandrila. "Think of the holo opportunities for the flimsies and the grids! Not only will he fly you back to Coruscant twice as fast as any liner, but I promise you by the time you dock, there'll be newsbeings ten deep to record your arrival with an Imperial hero. You can't buy that kind of publicity."

     "Doesn't mean I want it for free."

     "Oh, please."

     "Look, Zilkha, I'm tired, the past three weeks' shoot was exhausting, I've got two new offers already, I really don't feel--"

     "Fine. Fine. Just don't come to me next time you don't get script rewrites approval, or next time you get locked in a contract with that nauseating little trained monkey, Garik Loran, or…"

     Wynssa had thrown her hands up at that. Had to -- Zilkha really was trying her best to get her the kind of bargaining power that would give her her independence. But now, half-listening to Corlag's unctuous speeches, she regretted not sticking to her guns. Whatever possessed military officers to think their attractiveness depended on how many men they could line up in neat stiff rows? She'd been on the "Empire's Revenge" for three days, had seen at least four reviews, and wasn't looking forward to another week of that regimen.

     "May I introduce you to my staff officers, Miss Starflare?"

     _Keep that smile firmly on, Wynssa._ "Certainly, Captain."

     There _had_ to be a downside to the smaller numbers of soldiers present this afternoon on the bridge. She hadn't been expected to shake hands with every stormtrooper during yesterday's docking bay review. No helping it, though. She followed Corlag down the olive-green line, mouthing polite platitudes to every man in turn. Most were frankly admiring, which really, she chided herself, she couldn't complain about. _You're the one who wanted to leave the refueling station, Syal. You're the one who wanted to make it in holos. Deal._

     * * *

     Almost at the end of the row, with the junior ranks, Per Theel, his earlier grumbling forgotten, stared at the holostar working the line, finding a few words for each officer. Wynssa Starflare was smaller than he'd expected, but no holo could do justice to her translucent skin, brilliant blue eyes and flashing smile. Her soprano voice, with her clear actress's elocution, stirred emotions he hadn't known he could feel. When she finally reached him, he felt himself blushing with dismay.

     "How do you do? Have you served on the 'Empire's Revenge' long, Lieutenant?"

     He stammered something. Suddenly, saying: "Two years and seven months" seemed more arduous than solving a dual-vector hyperspace astrogation problem. The holostar moved on to the next officer--

     And very briefly paused. _The freak._ She was bound to notice the only non-human officer on the Star Destroyer. That idiot Corlag should have found him something to do at the other end of the ship: his precious holostar wasn't going to thank him for making her greet a prakking _alien_.

     "How do you do, Lieutenant? May I ask from which world you come?"

     "My homeworld is in what you call the Unknown Regions, Miss Starflare," the freak answered in the same cool voice he always used. "I have the advantage of you in this respect -- you are Corellian, are you not?"

     The star's large blue eyes widened even more: "How can you tell? I didn't think I'd kept any accent--"

     "Almost none at all. Perhaps those hard 'n's. You see, the first citizens of the Empire I ever met were Corellian traders. They spoke the earliest Basic I heard."

     Wynssa Starflare looked with interest into the junior lieutenant's strange, glowing red eyes. "I can't believe you learned Basic from Corellians. Quite frankly, lieutenant, I would have sworn it was your mother tongue."

     "You are very kind, Miss Starflare."

     "Not at all. I'm an actress. Speech is my profession, lieutenant..."

     "Thrawn."

     "Lieutenant Thrawn. Congratulations."

     In a haze of red-hot jealousy, Theel saw her move on to Mikam at the freak's-- Thrawn's -- right. And swore to himself that the uppity alien would soon be made to regret showing off to Wynssa Starflare.

     * * *

     Per Theel hadn't been alone in noticing the attention the visiting holostar had paid the newest flag lieutenant. As the staff disbanded to take their stations, the "Empire's Revenge" 's first officer made his way to the tac console, where Lieutenant Thrawn was grading holos of the latest missile exercises.

     "Living dangerously, lieutenant?"

     "Sir?"

     Commander Piett leaned into the holo viewspace and smiled pleasantly: "Save us both some time, lieutenant. I'm sure you can imagine what I'm talking about; you're not stupid. So let's say your little chat with Miss Starflare was undiplomatic. It is further suggested that you contrive to be anywhere else than in her presence in the next eight days she will spend on this ship. Do I make myself clear?"

     The strange red eyes were unreadable. "I think so, yes, sir."

     Piett's own grey eyes narrowed. "You _think_ so, lieutenant Thrawn? Care to share all that cerebral activity with us?"

     "I was wondering whether Captain Corlag had sent you, or whether you were trying to prevent an incident, sir."

     Piett considered the strange non-human Fleet Intelligence had recommended for this post. One of their special projects; had fast-tracked his way through Academy exams; it was rumored the Emperor approved of his existence. The "Empire's Revenge" 's first officer very much doubted the latter: Emperor Palpatine's anti-alien prejudices were well-known. But the young man was extremely competent, no doubt about that. Pretty self-contained, too, but that wasn't surprising -- few of his peers were likely to want to socialize with him. Not coming from a Core family himself, Piett had a fair notion of how Thrawn -- an alien, not just a provincial -- must have been received by the staff officers of a Navy Command flagship like the "Empire's Revenge". The memory of old but never-quite-forgotten slights somewhat softened his next remark. "The captain was, shall we say, very keen on Miss Starflare's visit. She asked him about you a moment ago. I don't expect this would be his conversation topic of choice with her. Even if she's only talking out of curiosity. Got me?"

     The non-human lieutenant nodded once. Was he imagining it, or had the young man's broad shoulders imperceptibly slumped for a second? But there was still no easily-read expression on that blue-skinned, somehow aristocratic face. "Good. Carry on with your tactical analysis. We'll need the rundown in two hours, before the next exercise starts."

     "Aye, sir."

     _Cold fish_, Piett thought. _For all I know, his kind are hermaphrodites or seasonal breeders or lay eggs._


	2. I Must Have Been a Hawkbat in a Previous...

CHAPTER 2

The gym was a vast Navy-grey cavern under glaring lighting. None of the frills of her smart Coruscant health club, but enough machinery and weights to keep Corlag's men in trim. As she'd hoped, it was empty at this late hour. In the changing-room, Wynssa quickly slipped into her leotard and legwarmers, tied up her hair, and snapped on her heart-rate monitor. _Oh the bliss of it. Just a workout, no socializing, no endless dinners or dratted reviews. Back in the main room, she stretched for a few minutes, then, having eyed the track and stepper, picked the exercise tribike. She set the gravity on Corellian values, 5% heavier than the ship's standard, and set off for a warm-up at a brisk RPM. Twenty minutes later, she had worked up a nice sweat, a 110 pulse, and her spirits had shot up like a TIE Interceptor, Corlag a distant memory. Time to go hang from a bar or two. She climbed off the bike and made a beeline for the far wall, mopping her face and neck with her towel--_

--and almost collided with another late exerciser lifting weights. Blast. It was too much to hope that she could be alone. She mumbled an apology, tossing the towel around her neck, and stopped in her tracks when she identified the weight-lifter. "Lieutenant--Thrawn, yes? Now where had you vanished all this while?"

He looked at her with enough cool deliberation to surprise her, then set down his weights into the notches of their cross-bar. "There are 37,000 of us on the 'Empire's Revenge', Miss Starflare. You may not have met all of us yet."

Was he making fun of her? She flushed and returned his look steadily. He was wearing khaki shorts and a singlet, showing the long muscles of a runner. His pale-blue skin was smooth as a marble statue. Out of uniform he definitely looked more alien. "There's only one of _you in the officer corps, lieutenant, and I have seen enough officers in the past five days to man a Golan space station, I can assure you," she said tartly._

It was really no more than a twitch of his lips, but she caught it, and grinned. "Ah, that's better! For a moment I really thought you disliked me enough to avoid me."

Now Thrawn _did look taken aback for an instant. "You are very... direct, Miss Starflare," he said eventually._

"Bantha by the horns, that's my motto." She couldn't believe she'd just said that. _Now **what in stars' name is the matter with me? Light-headed from the extra oxygen already? They were standing close to the fixed bar, and stepping back, she sprang up, on her toes, to grab it and hang straight, feeling her spine stretch blissfully, vertebra by vertebra. **__I must have been a hawkbat in a previous life. "So, lieutenant, __were you? Avoiding me?"_

He was staring at her with interest now. "Yes."

She nearly let go of the bar. In an instant, he was under her, ready to grab hold of her. That close, she could see the top of his short but thick blue-black hair, a few centimeters from her waist. "I'm all right," she said, swinging lightly to prove it. He took one step back and she let herself drop to the floor. "Nice technique. First startle the target, then pick her up."

He did laugh at that, a short sound that didn't quite seem in character. "I would say you have the tactical advantage of me, Miss Starflare."

"You're doing it again."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Lobbing the zoneball back at me."

"Do I?"

"I asked about your world and you got out of answering by guessing my accent. Now instead of telling me why you're avoiding me, you butter me up with some nonsense about tactical advantage."

"Butter you up," he repeated unhurriedly, as if considering the words and their meaning literally, and she felt herself blush, blurting out: "It's an expression."

"I gathered as much," he said with a slight smile of those thin, well-defined lips. "Very well, Miss Starflare: I was advised by one of my superiors to stay away from you."

"To stay away from-- "

"You are the Captain's guest. I was given to understand that he would not appreciate your taking an interest in me. For whatever reason," he added before she could voice an objection.

_Stay away from her. What did that idiot Corlag think? She recalled having mentioned the non-human junior officer to him two days before, almost in passing. She couldn't remember his answer now._

"But what a nerve!" she spluttered.

"Yes, was it not?"

She had almost nothing to compare it to, yet his tone struck her. It sounded--almost flippant, and completely out of character. Again. He must have caught the narrowing of her eyes, because he smiled again, and it was a very different smile from the first, crinkling the corners of those strange glowing red eyes. "Don't encourage me on the path of self-indulgence, Miss Starflare. No, I didn't especially like it, but this is the Imperial Navy, not a holiday resort. It doesn't owe me a social life -- just a military career."

"And are you getting that?"

He considered her for an instant, then set to choosing another set of weights. "Oh, yes. I really have no cause to complain."

She looked on as he slid the additional weights on either side of the crossbar, then stepped under it and started lifting them above his shoulders in a smooth motion. He was a magnificent athlete, deceptively lean; he hardly showed the effort the movement obviously required. She waited until he'd finished ten extended lifts and set the crossbar back into its durasteel trestle before she asked quietly:

"Why this Navy career? Wouldn't your own world need your talents more than the mighty Imperial machine?"

His eyes glittered at that, and instinctively she took a step back. "My...world...is... _not... interested," he spat out, grabbing the heavy weighted crossbar again and jabbing it above his head almost without pause for several minutes. When he finally set it down, a fine sheen of sweat shone on his face and his bare shoulders. Embarrassed, Wynssa silently handed him her towel. He took it reflexively, dried his face and neck, then stared down at the drenched terrycloth, seemingly sliding back into the cool, unflappable persona she'd seen on the bridge. "I'll have this washed and sent back to you. I apologize; I shouldn't have used it."_

"Don't worry about this. It's the ship's, not mine. I--I'm the one who should apologize."

He looked at her from slightly narrowed eyes. "No. No, you said nothing wrong. On the contrary, you were quite perceptive. And right, of course. My world thinks it has no use for me, Miss Starflare, and so I had to pursue a military career by other means in order to be one day of service to them. When the Imperial Navy found me, in fact, I was in exile."

"You had left?"

"I had been banished. To an uninhabited planet."

Her eyes widened: "Alone? With -- no ship?"

He simply nodded. 

"My stars! How long?"

"Five years. I was... rescued by an Imperial Star Destroyer."

"That was fortunate."

"Oh, I... assisted fortune somehow. But yes, I could not have made them stop on the planet if it hadn't been on their route; that was indeed lucky."

She wondered what "assist Fortune" could have meant, and if he realized what a heroic figure he cut--the abandoned soldier on his solitary rock, now turned into a model naval officer of another civilization. "I would have gone mad," she said with conviction.

"You--"

"Alone to survive on a deserted planet, with an almost certain chance of having to spend the rest of my existence there?"

"That world actually had interesting resources -- minerals, a rich vegetation, a good atmosphere. It was my hope that some colonists might eventually come to claim it."

"You simply won't accept to be called a hero, lieutenant, is that it?" she asked lightly.

He smiled at that: "Holodramas require heroes, Miss Starflare. All I had to do was stay alive."

"And 'assist' Fortune."

He cocked his head to consider her: "Again, at the risk of repeating myself--you are extremely perceptive, Miss Starflare."

"Wynssa."

He seemed to hesitate, then extended his hand in an oddly formal manner: "Wynssa. Very well. Please call me Thrawn."

She took his hand and shook it firmly. "You realize that I won't resist asking you why you'd been exiled, do you?"

He smiled slightly: "A very long story, mis-- Wynssa. I don't think I could tell it in less than the time required for, say, dinner."

_So much for all that "stay away from her" business. "No need for that," she joked. "It's now obvious to me you must have been guilty of arrant recklessness."_

His face froze for an instant, and when he spoke, his voice was space-cold: "But how clever of you, Wynssa. It was indeed recklessness." 

She looked at him wordlessly. The intensity of his answers was almost disturbing – as if half the words were booby-trapped. _A change from my usual conversations in the holo business, surely. Still, it upped the stakes unexpectedly. She now had a choice – diffuse the tension with another, lighter pleasantry, or let open the floodgates of his reminiscences. She had enough experience to know that he was ready to confide in her. And to realize that, in what seemed to be his current self-flagellating mood, he might afterwards regret it._

_Better tone this down a bit. At least for now._

"Lieutenant, I don't—"

"Thrawn."

"Thrawn, I don't know—_what —you did to set yourself against your people. But somehow, I have a feeling you'd do it again today, if you found yourself in the same situation."_

He stood silent for an instant, absently folding the towel. "You're taking issue with the word 'reckless'."

She nodded, and smiled. "Yes. Yes, I suppose I do. I'm guessing you tend to be hard on yourself."

"No more than others," he said quietly. "And certainly no more than necessary. Do you do stage work, Wynssa?"

She stared at him in surprise at the sudden change of subject. "Do I—?"

"Theater. You're precise. You pay attention to words."

He was quick, she had to give him that. "Yes, I do. Or did – holos seem to take more and more of my time these days." She grinned. "And they pay a _lot more."_

"In that case, I hope you won't be too disappointed by the technicians' mess I was hoping to take you to."

She had _meant to steer the conversation back to a safer pitch, she reflected, so why did she now feel disappointed?_

Thrawn threw her a shrewd look. "Second thoughts, Miss Starflare?"

_Am I so transparent? "No. If __you don't. When did you have in mind?"_

He smiled, but did not take the bait. "Tonight would be a bit late. How about tomorrow, 19:00?"

"You're a fast operator once you've made up your mind, aren't you?"

He inclined his head slightly, with an odd formality. "It's always good tactics."

_And how's that for a deadpan? "Very well, tomorrow it is. How shall—"_

"It's not that easy to find – the "Revenge" is a large ship. I could meet you here, and escort you."

Well, that would take care of one problem – her suite was distressingly close to Corlag's ready room. Still—

"I would also suggest that you dress more – neutrally than when you visited the bridge. If such a suggestion doesn't offend you."

She had to laugh at that. "And where would we be if it did? Now let me guess, you'd want me to wear technician's overalls? Possibly with a cap?"

"You understand me so well, Miss Starflare."

When he grinned like that, he looked very human after all, she reflected. "The thing is, I'm not sure I've packed something that will look enough like your standard Imperial mechanic's outfit."

"That's what quartermasters are for." He looked at her appraisingly. "Why don't you hang on to your locker's key overnight? When you come in tomorrow evening, you'll find the overalls inside and you can change here."

And that would take care of any question as to her whereabouts; she'd already established an exercise routine in the few days she'd been on board "Empire's Revenge." "That's very clever," she said.

"Very simple."

"And you're not worried someone will track the missing overalls to you?"

"Not unless they're looking for a sliced line of code which could, or could not, have been a request form."

She threw up her hands. "With this kind of ingenuity just to organize a dinner date, I wonder that you're not a general already."

She'd sat down on the exercise mat to unhook her zoneball sneakers, but looked up when no answer was forthcoming. The alien lieutenant hadn't moved and was considering her with those strange glowing eyes. "That's for tomorrow night's conversation," he finally said.


	3. You've Got a Funny Way of Saying 'You're...

CHAPTER 3

Lieutenant Rory Mikam was stretched out on his bunk, trying somewhat listlessly to make sense of an astrogation problem, when, beyond the edge of the backlit datapad, his eye caught the movement of the dorm room door opening. _The freak. Mikam had been curious enough, some months back, to follow Thrawn one evening, and had only been half-surprised to find out the alien junior lieutenant liked exercising alone, late in the evening. __Figures, with the shape he's in. Thrawn was constantly scoring the best marks in training, and Mikam had once or twice even wondered if he wasn't holding himself back just a little, in order not to come too obviously first every time. He'd mentioned his feeling to Per Theel, who'd blown him off nastily, but Per's obsession with the freak blinded him altogether to too many things. Good thing Per was on duty right now, Mikam thought – he wouldn't have liked the uncharacteristic little smile on Thrawn's thin lips. __Would've taken it personal. The fourth bunk was empty – their last roommate had been transferred to another ship, and hadn't yet been replaced._

" 'lo," Mikam mumbled as the other passed his bunk and started unbuttoning his uniform tunic.

"Hello," Thrawn replied after an infinitesimal silence.

Mikam glanced back at the datapad. "I, er, didn't thank you the other day—"

The red eyes fractionally turned to him. "Whatever for?"

_You're gonna make me sweat it, is that it? "For not letting me fall on my face during review."_

Thrawn paused briefly in the act of folding his uniform trousers. "Oh, that?" The thin blue lips stretched an additional centimeter. "Do you expect Captain Corlag would have made the difference among us three if we'd somehow messed up his bridge parade?"

 _Smug sonovanek. Not that he hasn't got a point. We'd all three have ended up in the brig for a week. "Ah," Mikam said weakly._

Thrawn took his time hanging his trousers into his locker long enough that Mikam had turned back to his datapad when he heard the smooth voice again. "On the other hand, I don't think I might have minded so much being disciplined if I could have seen Theel splattered into the starboard crew pit."

Mikam gaped up swiftly. Thrawn had spoken softly, almost dreamily. 

"You've got a funny way of saying 'you're welcome'."

"Have I? But it's quite sincere."

This time Rory burst out laughing. He was still catching his breath when Per Theel strode in, and stopped in the middle of the dorm, glaring at his two roommates.

"What's so prakking funny?"

Rory Mikam's brain went blank for a sickening beat. He could clearly predict the nasty tantrum Theel would throw if he didn't manage to dig himself out of that hole _fast_, but his mind refused to function. He was still racking it when Thrawn's voice cut through, on a very different, angry tone.

"All right, that's enough. Give me back my datapad!"

A blue hand snatched his datapad from his still-uncomprehending grasp, and the alien hissed "You play another of these games on me and you'll regret it."

"This freak giving you trouble, Rory?" Theel started, menacing.

Understanding flooded through Mikam. _He's making Per believe I was laughing **at **__him, not ****__with __him. It was beautifully simple, and it had worked. __Now I better return the favor and deflect the heat from red-eyes here._

"Nah, give it up, Per. I'm bushed, all I want is my bed."

"Wouldn't be no trouble. I've been saying for some time some people get too uppity for their own good."

"Lay it off already. I don't give a blast."

Theel's glare swiveled from his bunkmate to the freak. It was obvious he weighed the difference between jumping Thrawn with Mikam, and trying it alone. Thrawn stood his ground coolly, one hand idly tapping a few keys on the datapad. An instant later, Theel threw himself on his bunk with a scowl.

"You're a bloody wuss, Mikam."

"Whatever. Can you turn down the prakking light?"

Theel grumbled a bit more, but soon enough, the dorm was dark and quiet. Mikam was, in fact, close to slumber himself when he felt the touch of a hand on his arm. He nearly jumped before he glimpsed the two glinting red slits a meter or so from him and realized Thrawn, from the neighboring bunk, was silently handing him his datapad back. With the movement, the sleeping screen came alive. Quickly flipping it his way to hide the soft glare from Theel, Mikam reflexively cast a look at the display.

His astrogation problem was solved.

                                                                ***

The blare of what sounded like a thousand sirens woke them in the middle of the night.

"What the frell—"

"Not another drill—"

As he was scrambling into his uniform, Mikam felt the dorm floor move slightly – not even a lurch, still unusual on a ship that size.

"No drill," he heard Thrawn say dryly while pulling on his boots. On his other side, Per Theel swore under his breath while burrowing under a pile of ballistics manuals for a clean shirt.

"Who'd be stupid enough to attack an Imperial Star Destroyer?"

"Someone either desperate, or who think they have a good chance against us," the alien replied calmly, clipping shut his uniform belt buckle, and in a departure from normal bridge dress regs, fastening a side-arm holster to it. 

"How's a blaster gonna help you in a space battle, nerf-herder?" Theel guffawed. Without waiting to see how his taunt was received, he hurried out. Almost ready himself, Mikam glanced quickly at Thrawn. The thin blue lips stretched in the hint of a smile. "You never know what may happen in battle," the alien lieutenant said quietly. 

_And you look like you've learned this the hard way. Making up his mind in a flash, Mikam threw his locker open, grabbed his own blaster and pocketed it. Thrawn raised an approving blue-black eyebrow. "Shall we?"_

                                                                ***

The bridge _looked normal, with nothing but an empty starfield beyond the far end viewports – but there was no mistaking the tension in the air. Mikam and Thrawn ran up the steps from the turbolift, taking in the state of readiness of the various teams at battle stations. In the starboard crew pit, the main turbolasers were already being prepped under the barked orders of Lieutenant-Commander Janred; but next to their bank of consoles, the shield modulators were still only attended by a harried-looking single lieutenant, probably the night duty officer. The port crew pit was similarly unequally manned. In theory, capital ships operated 24 standard hours a day. In practice, "daytime" was determined by the captain's own schedule – whoever pulled "night" duty, because they had less contact with the commanding officers, stood more remote from any influence they could hope to have with the chain of command. Some captains made a point of rotating everyone's schedules, starting with their own. Corlag wasn't one of those – in fact, Mikam noted with some surprise, it didn't even look as if he was on the bridge yet. __So who—_

But Thrawn had already spotted Commander Piett leaning over the shoulder of the tactical holo officer, tensely studying the repeater displays. He and Mikam hurried to the "Empire's Revenge's first officer, standing at attention two respectful meters from the tac station. Piett didn't move an inch for a couple of minutes. Finally he straightened up, turning a tired face to the two junior lieutenants. Mikam saw that it took him half a second to place him. Thrawn of course he knew at once. _Figures. _

"Mikam, Thrawn. As you can see, there's an unknown fleet out there half a light-second from us. One..._thing the size of a Dreadnaught, two frigates, possibly fighters, all shields up, so they're obviously hostile. I want you to check on the readiness of our ion and missile crews. If they're undermanned, take command until the proper team leaders have shown up, and have them power up at once. Then report to me."_

"Aye, sir." Mikam saluted smartly and made to turn, but Thrawn didn't move. "If I may, sir?" he said in that smooth, cultured voice.

Piett threw him a less than friendly glance. "Yes, lieutenant? Is this really the time?"

"I believe so, sir," the other replied, with a fractional movement of the chin at the tactical holo displays. "The enemy's configuration doesn't look complete. I wonder if they appeared on our sensors long ago? And much further than where they are now?"

Piett's eyes narrowed, but to Mikam's astonishment, he did answer. "No, in fact. They dropped out of hyperspace perhaps two minutes before the alarm was rung. Janred was the bridge officer and he raised me on the comm at once."

"In that case, sir, it's very possible that the rest of them is waiting to see how we engage these ships, and revert to realspace behind us to crush us in a pincer."

Piett snorted. "And assuming – _assuming! – that you read the holos right, lieutenant Thrawn, what makes you think that the commander of this group would take the risk to confront an Imperial Star destroyer heads on with less than his full contingent? Without any possible coordination with his – hypothetical – remaining force as long as they stay in hyperspace?"_

"Sir, they can revert to realspace at short intervals just to check on their timing. It doesn't need to be within range of our sensors."

Piett frowned. "It may not have occurred to you, lieutenant, that this is hardly the time for this kind of speculation. Yes, in theory your microjumps idea is possible, but it would be frelling costly just for a comm call. And we don't know who this fleet belongs to. Or if we're the ones they wanted so badly in the first place."

_And that's as much of a brushoff you'll get this side of being grounded, buddy, Mikam thought almost out loud. Couldn't Thrawn see he was asking for trouble? But—_

"Sir, with all due respect – does this really matter?" red-eyes went on, as coolly as you please. "The question is rather whether they'll back off when they see we're Imperials. And" – another carefully controlled chin movement – "they don't act as if they will."

Piett's eyes swiveled from Thrawn to the holo display then back to where the two young men rigidly stood. "All right. I'm not saying I believe it yet, but show me what makes you think this. Fast, if possible."

"Aye, sir." The alien lieutenant stepped to the tac console and picked up the light pointer. "The two frigates – _here – are staying aft and portside of the Dreadnaught, as if they kept to a diamond formation which should include a parallel flanking fore and starboard of the capital ship. But that side is empty – completely unprotected." The pointer's thin red beam of coherent light quickly jabbed at the empty space ahead and to the right of the Dreadnaught's round shape. "They haven't moved in the past five minutes, so we have to assume they're waiting in place. As you said, sir, they've powered up shields. They know we're here – no Duros would hold still otherw—"_

"Hold it!" Piett snapped. "What did you say? A Duros?"

"I believe that's a Duros captain in the Dreadnaught, sir", the freak went on smoothly. "From the holo shadow, it looks closest to one of those Kuat capital ships that were decommissioned by the Republic fifteen years ago, and extensively reconditioned by the Duros government for a while—"

"Blast it!"

"Sir?"

Snapping his fingers for the two lieutenants to follow him, Piett ran to Captain Corlag's still-empty command chair, sat in, and flicked on the command displays. "Comm? What other Imperial ships can you locate within five parsecs? Mikam, give me a general weapons readiness status. Use this station. Thrawn? What do you know of this Duros Navy reconditioning? What armaments do they have?"

"Standard, sir? In most cases, they replaced the ion cannons by sublight torpedoes. Added heavy turbolasers. Sorosuub long-range hyperdrive docking rings for half a squadron of fighters, but Sorosuub doesn't maintain these any longer, so I don't expect they're all operational."

"Fightercraft?"

"Preybird-class mostly, but—"

"But we can't be sure they've not replaced that clunky old junk in the past 15 years, can we?"

The alien nodded. "Exactly, sir."

Jaws tensed, Piett was hitting keys rapidly on the captain's controls. "You see, lieutenant," he said without looking up, "we've known for some time of a Duros pirate working the Chandrilan Trade Spine with his own little fleet. If that's indeed him, your pincer theory is likely correct."


	4. The Son of an Unmarried Nek Battle Dog W...

CHAPTER 4

As far as Wynssa Starflare was concerned, the blare of the sirens was the sweetest sound in the known universe.

She hadn't been back from the gym for ten minutes that a knock on the door of her suite had revealed Captain Corlag, followed by a serving droid bearing a heavy tray; and _no amount of polite, and even not-so polite demurring, had managed to shake him off. Sprawled on the sitting-room couch – the man had a way of spreading himself, legs extended in front of him, arms draped over the padded backrest, Corellian brandy snifter in hand – he'd insisted on telling her long and convoluted tales of influence and backstabbing within military and Court circles. Every now and then, he leaned forward over the armrest of her own chair, exhaling increasingly alcoholic breaths in her general direction. Early on, Wynssa has made a quick decision – to try and get him drunk while maintaining a glacial, Ice-Queen persona. Pouring brandy into the Captain had been ridiculously easy, she now reflected. It was even possible that the Ice Queen part had indeed prevented him from actually lunging at her – he __did take her rebuffs with some attempts at apologizing, every time. The snag was that however drunk he'd become, Corlag, a big man, __still didn't act incapacitated. __What ****__will __it take to knock him out? He's well into the second bottle, and his speech is hardly slurring. Not for the first time Wynssa considered the possibility that in hitching a ride on "Empire's Revenge", she might have made a stupid decision._

So when klaxons loud enough to crack transparisteel had suddenly drowned the Captain's last meandering story, she'd felt grateful more than anything else. Hands on her ears, she sprang to her feet, mimicking surprise and shock.

"My dear Wynssa, don't worry! It's a drill!"

She shook her head wildly as if she couldn't hear in the alarms' racket, eyes wide and face frozen in a style she had perfected while shooting "Imperial Forever." _Why won't this imbecile take the hint? Unfortunately, Corlag seemed to feel it behoved him to protect her. Advancing on her purposefully, he'd almost cornered her against a bulkhead when he lurched and staggered against the serving droid. Seeing an opening, Wynssa darted under his flailing arm between the droid and the couch. She caught a short breath in the middle of the sitting-room, faced with a choice of two doors, and elected to rush out into the corridor – the idea of locking herself in her bedroom with a maudlin Captain Corlag banging on the only door definitely didn't appeal. The drill guaranteed a certain amount of confusion in the ship's corridors, and she could always argue afterwards that she'd been too scared to think..._

_Amend "confusion" to "chaos", she thought the minute she found herself in the middle of a general rush of troops in every direction. __Now what? _

                                                                ***

Commander Piett cast a hard, sweeping look across the bridge, now operating at full readiness, every weapons station manned and powered up, TIE squadrons at the ready in their hangar bays, the comm and sensor officers flanking his small command staff on either side of the parallel crew pits. On the tactical holo, now enlarged four times to be easily readable by all officers from their bridge stations, the Duros fleet had barely moved. "The son of an unmarried Nek battle dog wants me to blink first," Piett spat under his breath. It helped a little, but not much. _And where the frell was the captain? _

"I would imagine our Duros friend is beginning to feel doubtful himself, sir," lieutenant Thrawn's cool voice said in a quiet undertone.

Piett took a few seconds to consider the junior lieutenant standing next to his—_no, Corlag's! he reminded himself—command chair. For the past hour, he'd been acting for all practical purposes as his first officer, nominally in charge of tactical. There had been some funny looks, but Piett didn't care – the man had called the situation correctly, and seemed to have uncanny powers of organization in patching together a coherent battle order out of a crew that had obviously let far too long without proper drills instead of mindless physical exercises. __When we're out of this, I'm going to redraft the entire shifts rota, he swore to himself. __Some of the night teams here haven't worked with the day officers in ****__months. _

                                                                ***

_If this is a drill, I don't want to know what the real thing is. Wynssa had never been caught in such a suffocating press of people, not even at the Ralltiir Holo Festival, which could go pretty wild. __And I had an airlimo and security guards aplenty. She would not panic. Panic was the surest way to get in trouble. __Look at the bright side, Corlag sure won't catch up with me now. _

There was a flow to the crowd, she noticed – most of the troops seemed to know where they were heading. Except that she wasn't part of whatever general plan – **_battle__ plan? – they were following. With difficulty, she pushed her way laterally to the corridor's near wall, and stopped there, her back firmly against the durasteel, staring at the torrent milling past her. Soldiers, crewmen, techs, stormtroopers, black-clad TIE pilots... She was still wearing her gym leotards, she realized. __The gym! She could certainly return there for a while. It was bound to be quieter. __And—_**

But she wouldn't dare hope for that yet. She started to struggle against the current, always hugging the wall on one side. Some of the men who bumped into her cursed; one trooper whistled at her tight getup and reached for her, but she batted his hand away, and he was gone. When she finally reached the turbolift she aimed for, her breath was short and she was more shaken than she wanted to acknowledge. Twice the lift spat out a crowd of uniformed crewmen, until she decided to board it in the wrong direction and follow the movement down. _It's **got to go back up eventually. Her back to the bulkhead again, nose squished against someone's olive-green uniform sleeve, she rode what felt like miles down to the bowels of the Star Destroyer. Finally the turbolift emptied of its last occupants – three grey-overalled techs who'd eyed her clinging exercise outfit curiously – and Wynssa gratefully hit the gym level panel. **_

During the long ride up, as the cabin filled again, she was careful to keep to the immediate side of the door, fearful that she wouldn't be able to get off at her level if she let herself be pushed all the way back again. It worked, and scuttling out, she finally found herself in the familiar, much less crowded passageway to the sports complex. Practically running, she reached the gym doors, palmed the hatch control, and dashed into the entirely deserted facility, breathing hard. _Now stop it, you stupid girl, you never were in any serious danger. But she couldn't stop herself from shaking, and sat rather abruptly on the rowing machine's bench. After a few minutes, another thought came to her. __Just you wait, Zilkha, until I tell you. Publicity, ha! That brought enough of a smile to her lips that she was able to stand up again, and try and consider what she should do next._

_Now if this were tomorrow, at least I'd have something less revealing to wear—_

Wynssa fumbled in her gusset pocket. Sure enough, the key to her locker was still there. _No harm in having a look. She walked all the way to the back of the big facility and the access to the changing rooms, cautioning herself against unreasonable expectations. It took her two tries before she managed to insert and turn the key._

Inside the locker, neatly folded, was a tech's outfit, of the same grey that she'd just seen in the turbolift, and she let out the long breath she didn't know she was holding. _I don't even want to know **when he had the time to think of this. Ripping off her leotards, she gratefully shrugged herself into the baggy overalls, zipping the front all the way to her chin. **__This, at least, would make her less conspicuous. Peeking again inside the locker, she saw a new grey cap that had been hidden by the overalls. __Perfectionist, she thought, smiling in spite of herself. Grabbing it, she found it strangely heavy. __There's something inside—_

It was a comlink, together with a short note on a piece of flimsy. _"This is tuned to my personal frequency. Let me know if you had second thoughts after all. T."_


	5. Two Can Play This Game

CHAPTER 5

From his post at the relaying comm station, just sideways of the Captain's command chair, currently usurped by that nonentity Piett, Per Theel had an excellent vantage point over most of the "Empire's Revenge" bridge – and the day's freshest outrage, the red-eyed freak ordering human officers about as if it were the most normal thing in the world. _Should've pegged Piett for a frigging alien-lover sooner. When he'd shown up to report on the bridge, looking for Captain Corlag – __and **where was prakking Corlag while all this was going on? – Piett had assigned Theel to the comm, and barely spoken to him except to require reports. Yet when the freak had shown up with that sneaky twerp, Mikam – **__who'd be made to regret sucking up to that blue ape soon enough – Piett had bent over backwards to ask the other's advice, and to put him in charge. If that wasn't close to treason, Theel didn't know what was. The Imperial Navy had never admitted sub-humans until now, and there was a good—_

"Lieutenant Theel, I believe I asked you for the subspace comm report," the freak's precise, hated voice cut into Per's ruminations, cold as space. Theel cast a venomous glance towards the tac station, but hit the requisite keys on his console, having caught Piett's sharp look from the corner of his eye. Thrawn never seemed to raise his tone, but somehow he could make himself heard across the bridge. With a stiff nod, he called up Theel's report on the tac viewspace, studied it for an instant, and turned to Piett.

"Sir, I think Bpfassh orbital station caught their echo. Ten light-minutes from here, plausible vector. Fourteen-strong fleet, at least three capital ships, came out of lightspeed for no more than 200 seconds, had encrypted comm activity, and jumped again."

"Blast." Piett stepped to the tac station and stared at the reading intently. "Looks like it indeed. Where's the 'Judicator'?"

"Bimmisaari system, half a day from here, sir."

"And the 'Peremptory'?"

"Still not answering our subspace and holo hails, unless they did in the last ten minutes, sir. Lieutenant Casrah, lieutenant Theel?"

"Nothing, sir," Casrah called out from the main comm station, across the bridge from Theel, who forced himself to answer "nothing" in an even voice.

Piett's eyes swiveled from the Bpfasshi report to the main tactical holo display. "It might get very crowded here in a few minutes," he remarked. "Suggestions, lieutenant Thrawn?"

_Not "suggestions, gentlemen", Theel inwardly seethed. Granted, there was little tradition of collegial leadership in the Imperial Navy but this— this simply meant giving control to this __alien. _

"Sir, two can play this game," the other's smooth voice came. "We could microjump behind the nearest system's sun. It's a red dwarf, cooling close to extinction—I imagine our hull could stand to exit hyperspace close enough that our shadow would be entirely confused with the star's itself. In fact, if we calculate the jump vector precisely enough, the red dwarf's gravity well should pull us back into realspace like an Interdictor no matter how far we plot our course. We might look as if we jumped to the other end of the Corellian Trade Spine and be practically here still."

_What damnfool notion— But Theel could see Commander Piett looked interested. __Interested? The man's practically slobbering. _

"You realize the manual says no hyperspace jump should be attempted near a planetary system, let alone _within one, lieutenant?" he commented mildly, raising an eyebrow to the young tactical officer._

The glowing red eyes glittered for an instant, then Thrawn smiled. "I would imagine our Duros friend is quite aware of that, Commander."

A bleep punctuated his answer, and Theel saw the alien lieutenant flicking his collar comlink on. 

"Bridge." 

Per couldn't identify the chittering voice coming from the device: clearly, Thrawn had turned the settings quite low. But it was obvious he interrupted whoever was reporting to him. "I still need those calculations," the freak was saying in his cool, arrogant voice. "In fact we may need them in the next fifteen minutes. Please have them ready." Infuriated, Theel watched Thrawn flicking out the communication without a word of thanks. _You think you've got it made, you can push us around. Well, I **don't think so. **_

Meanwhile, the freak was buttering up Piett. "My apologies, sir." Not that he needed to – the other looked ready to surrender command to him. _Could Thrawn have made a private deal with the Duros pirate fleet? Have gotten rid of the Captain somehow – **where the frell was Corlag? – and planned this all along? **_

                                                                 ***

Commander Piett didn't share Theel's suspicions, but the captain's absence was beginning to worry him. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, considering the tactical holo for a moment. "Hmmm. Once behind the sun, we can wait six hours for the 'Judicator' to join us, and crush them. I like your idea," he finally told the young alien lieutenant patiently standing next to the command chair. "I like it a lot, but I'd like it even better if we'd managed to sell it to Captain Corlag. Casrah, have you managed to reach the Captain yet?"

"No answer from the Captain's quarters, sir." 

Piett compressed his lips to a thin line. "We should have sent someone to check on him."

"I'll detail two men straightaway, sir," Thrawn said quietly, "but they won't be back in time—"

"Yes, I know—if this other force jumps back here straight from Bpfassh, they'll hit us in what—?"

"Worst-case scenario, seven minutes, sir."

Piett's grey eyes narrowed. "Very well, let's do it, and be quick about it. Sensor officer: I want a report on anything that moves in a half-parsec radius. Lieutenant Thrawn, I assume you can calculate precisely that jump vector to the other side of the red dwarf?"

"Aye, sir. I'll need to double-check on—"

"Do it. Helm: full power to the main engines, you'll be getting a hyperspace vector in a moment from lieutenant Thrawn. Lieutenant Mikam, I need a long-range missiles readiness check, full-operational in ten minutes: please coordinate with Commander Janred. Let's be about it, gentlemen!"

Thrawn had already stepped to the tac console, keying in data. Piett saw him talking into his comlink, and called up the new sensor reports on the command chair's displays, a tight feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was no theoretical reason for the microjump to fail, as long as it was carefully plotted. Small craft had been known to do it, even to rely on large astral bodies' gravity to revert to realspace – the Bomdan system was a favorite, because of its star's unusual density. Still, this would be a first with any kind of capital ship. Piett thought of the 37,000 men on "Empire's Revenge," then of the havoc a fleet of over 20 pirate ships could wreak even on an Imperial Star Destroyer. It was a command decision, he'd taken it. All he could do now was trust that Thrawn was as good an astrogator as he seemed to be a tactician.

"Inputing the jump coordinates now, sir."

Piett cast a look at the navputer display. No time to lose.

"Thank you, Lieutenant Thrawn. Helm, prepare to—"

The rest of the order never came, as a booming voice interrupted from the command walkway to the bridge.

"What the _kreth is going on on my bridge? Piett, what do you think you're doing?"_

Captain Corlag had finally appeared.


	6. Some JumpedUp Whippersnapper Got Scared

CHAPTER 6

_"I still need those calculations. In fact we may need them in the next fifteen minutes. Please have them ready."_

Click.

**_What__ the—?_**

Still standing in the middle of the empty locker-room, Wynssa eyed the now-silent comlink. What was Thrawn up to—

_Calm down. What **exactly did he say?**_

He'd answered the call with "Bridge", so that's where he must have been. Possibly with Corlag breathing down his neck. _You didn't seriously want him to go "hello, darling" in front of all the brass, did you? _

Wynssa sat down rather abruptly on one of the room's wooden benches, the comlink still in her hand. _"I need those calculations in the next fifteen minutes." He was **telling you something, silly. Must mean he'll call back in the next quarter-hour.**_

Or did it mean _she was supposed to call back?_

Double-guessing Thrawn seemed a pretty useless exercise. _This one must stay three moves ahead of anyone. Dad would love playing holochess with him. Unbidden, the mental image of Jagged Antilles sitting in his work overalls at the small game table in the back of the refueling station sprang to her mind. The memory was so vivid that for an instant she thought she could smell the durasene fumes and see the dark stains under her father's short, chipped nails, as he deftly nudged one of the miniature warriors across the board. Her throat suddenly constricted. Why would __this come back to her now? She'd left Gus Treta almost eight years ago, at 17, and never been back. She'd sent a couple of holocards after a while, which hadn't been answered, even the one that included a clip from her first screen test; and a credit chip that had never been cashed. Although more recently a credit voucher she'd transmitted for her kid brother's birthday had been used in the Coronet City branch of the upscale Imperial Center toy store chain she'd picked. Her bank statement had included the article code, and she'd looked it up: a model airspeeder, half-size, just the thing, she figured, for a 12-year-old. No note of thanks ever came. She wondered what their parents had told young Wedge._

The _bleep of the comlink interrupted her thoughts, and grabbing it, she flicked it on._

"Wynssa?"

"Yes, yes, I'm here!"

"Good. Where are you?"

No explanations, no superfluous words, but there was something amazingly comforting in his cool, quiet tone. "Still in the gym."

"Stay there until I call you again, and change into the overalls if you haven't yet. Wear the cap. You understand this is not a drill?"

"It's not? But—"

"I think we should be all right, but you're safer where you are than in a VIP cabin with viewports, close to the Captain's quarters. If you _have to move, find some work with a group of people. Kitchen duty, cleaning detail, anything inconspicuous. Keep the comlink always with you, but out of sight, ring tone off, just the vibrating alert, understood? Thrawn out."_

Click.

She stared at the dead comlink for a full minute, then, with slightly shaking hands, tied up her hair in a ponytail and stuffed it in the grey cloth cap. Thrawn's clipped words still rang in her ears. Did he expect the "Empire's Revenge" to be _boarded? But who'd dare attack an Imperial Star Destroyer?_

                                                                 ***

Even before he was done outlining, as succinctly as he could, the behind-the-red-dwarf plan to Captain Corlag, First Officer Firmus Piett could tell it wouldn't fly. _Fly? If we don't actually get attacked by pirates in the next few minutes, I have a feeling I'm gonna wish we had. Corlag teetered fractionally, and Piett caught a whiff of the captain's breath.__ Maker, has the man just **bathed in Corellian brandy?**_

"Never heard anything more preposterous in my life. D'you mean you want to risk _my ship in a completely irregular maneuver just because some jumped-up whippersnapper got scared and started reading stim-tea leaves in the comm reports? Which of you sorry lot"—Corlag spun on his heel a little unsteadily to take in most of the bridge staff, his heavy bulk nearly stumbling against lieutenant Mikam at the relay weapons status station—"thought up this little wheeze?"_

"That was my decision, sir" Piett began at the same time that Thrawn took one step forward, saying "I did, sir."

Corlag's beady eye raked up and down the alien lieutenant frozen at full parade attention for an awful half-minute before swiveling back to Piett. "When I agreed to take on Imperial Center's latest _pet, I didn't mean to give __it the key to the command room." He swung back to the stock-still young officer. "Perhaps they run at the first hint of action where you come from, __lieutenant, but you'd better remember you're in the Imperial Navy now. ****__Piett!"_

"Sir?" Piett uttered in a toneless voice, registering in a flash the various expressions around the command post. _Anger on young Mikam's face – someone should really warn him to keep a better sabacc face. Janred looks disgusted – my shaving-mirror would show me much the same, I expect. And I'd never noticed how unpleasant young Theel looks with that bovine smirk pasted on. _

"After we've taken care of the riff-raff out there, see to it that Mister _Thrawn here does two weeks of cleaning duty for defeatist and cowardly attitude, with docked pay and mention in his record."_

"Sir, I—" 

"Do you mean to challenge a _direct order, __Commander Piett?"_

Piett forced himself to take a deep breath. "Sir, I don't, but—"

He didn't think Corlag's face could get redder. He was wrong. "If I get one more bleat out of you, Piett, you can bloody join your little alien pal on cleaning detail, d'you **_hear me? I'm not __halfway finished with you yet! You were about to go on with this dumb-ass idea when all you had to do was drop the Empire's hammer on some pathetic sub-human pirate scum who'll probably run rather than give us a half-way decent workout! Now you'd better—"_**

The rest of Corlag's tirade was drowned in the howl of the bridge and sensor alarms as what looked like an entire fleet dropped out of hyperspace a mere dozen klicks away, shields and weapons fully powered, launching several squadrons of mismatched fightercraft. As he ran to the tactical console, Piett had to fight half-a second's irrational feeling of relief. _We're probably going to get clobbered, but at least that jackass Corlag got shut up. He didn't imagine that thought would ever get engraved on his tombstone._


	7. It's Just Like Your Smart OneLiners

CHAPTER 7

Rory Mikam couldn't believe how close to boiling point he felt. 

While hurriedly feeding weapons stats updates to the command systems, he kept glancing in uneasy wonder at Thrawn's tall frame standing at the tac console, calmly inputting calculations under Casrah's and Piett's instructions. _I would've punched Corlag in the face, instead of standing there like a statue letting that **drunk call me an animal. The moron's reeking of brandy, and he's gonna get us ****killed.**_

The "Empire's Revenge" hull shuddered noticeably when its shields absorbed the first hits from the closest Dreadnaught's turbolasers. Corlag, who still hadn't sat in the command chair vacated by Piett, stumbled, grabbing the side of Mikam's console to catch himself at the last minute, and barked "Helm: all ahead full! Turbolasers: on my mark!"

Janred's readiness signal lit up on Mikam's displays. "Turbolasers ready, sir," Rory called.

"Target the Dreadnaught's superstructure and fire, full power!"

Relaying the order with the appropriate targeting computations, Mikam punched the keys, then looked up, catching Lieutenant-Commander Janred's eye just on the other side of the command walkway as the weapons officer directed the salvo from the port crewpit. _Janred looks as disgusted as me, he thought fleetingly, somewhat surprised at sharing so clearly a superior officer's feelings. The "Revenge" took another hit, and Corlag repeated his order, mechanically relayed by Mikam. __Does this lumbering bantha think we can just punch our way in? We are **so dead.**_

This time the "Empire's Revenge" took a sideways hit, and Mikam felt the deckplates lurch under him with a sick feeling in his stomach. "Starboard shields down to 27%!" someone shouted from the starboard crewpit, and neither Piett not the pit's ranking officer bothered to call the man on it – Piett usually tore a major strip off anyone bawling information across the bridge. Instead, the first officer's voice rang, only a shade tighter than usual.

"Recommend evasive maneuvers, sir."

"Evasive? Against this scum? You've lost your nerve, man! TIE control: order first two squadrons launched immediately, and two more prepped to launch at my command!"

_TIEs against a fleet of capital ships? They're gonna get murdered. Rory stared across at Casrah relaying the order on the comm in a flat voice, then caught Thrawn's glittering red eyes: the alien lieutenant had half-turned from the tac console when hearing the command. His pale-blue features were composed, as usual, but the thin line of the lips told the story. __He **knows this is about the worst way to fight our way out of this. But there's no way anyone will listen to him now.**_

"Turbolasers: on my mark!"

Corlag looked willing to keep ordering strikes with most of the Star Destroyer's weapons, like the furious swats of a cornered reek. "Turbolasers ready!" Rory called between clenched teeth.

The "Empire's Revenge" took a direct hit at that very moment, and the huge ship's entire structure shook with a tortured screech. Sparks flew, hardware crashed to the deck, crewers stumbled; and in the reigning pandemonium and shouts, Captain Corlag toppled and fell heavily, head hitting the edge of Mikam's console and massive body missing the junior lieutenant's legs by inches. Numbly, Mikam gaped at the captain sprawled at his feet, uniform cap lying a couple of feet away. A dazed look on his ruddy face, Corlag was already trying to hoist himself back up. _Oh no you don't, Rory thought in a flash. Two quick glances left and right reassured him that no-one was paying him much attention – yet. Wrenching from his jacket pocket the blaster Thrawn had encouraged him to carry, he grabbed the gun by its barrel and swung it hard against Corlag's cranium. The durasteel connected with a satisfying thud, and Corlag fell back to the deck bonelessly, mouth agape. __Good job. Mikam swiftly pocketed the blaster, and scrambled to his feet, yelling "Captain down! The captain is injured!"_

"So it would seem," Commander Piett's deadpan voice drawled just behind him, causing him to jump. Mikam spun to face the ship's first officer. "You'd better call a med droid," Piett said calmly, a faint smile hovering on his lips. "Hit his head on your console, did he?"

"Y-es, sir," Mikam stammered.

"Have him taken to sickbay at once." Piett looked down for an instant at Corlag's motionless, massive bulk. "Oh, and, lieutenant Mikam—you'd better make sure the Too-OneBee runs the proper tests before they medicate him. Some treatments are contra-indicated when too much alcohol's found in the blood. Wouldn't want to risk that. Better have it all on record."

"Er— yes, sir, just so," Mikam said, eyes widening a little. He turned to hit the comm key on his console, and as he called Medical, noticed Thrawn watching him from the tac station, a rare look of surprise on his aristocratic features. _Looks very human that way, Rory thought, and grinned. The other slowly smiled back, and nodded an appreciative salute. __Now I've cleared the way for you, pal, you'd better find a way to get us out of this jam._

                                                                 ***

As the gym floor lurched again under her feet, Wynssa Starflare started feeling rather queasy. _You've always been a good spacer. You're nervous, that's all. Wasn't much comfort. To have something to do, she'd started exercising on one the upper-body machines, seated on a bench while pulling down a weighted bar behind her shoulder blades. It was a good workout and stretched her back gratifyingly, but it never brought her the release from tension she'd come to expect from exertion as a due. Another tremor shook the ship. _Someone's slugging us out there_. She wondered how they could take it, the young men she'd dutifully shaken hands with day after day, and who spent years in this metal hull waiting to be targeted and shot at. _Perhaps they mostly think they'll be shooting at others. What fun_._

The comlink rang. She'd left it lying on another machine and searched for it frantically for a few seconds. _Stupid! There!_ She pounced on it. "Yes, yes!"

"Feeling the strain, Miss Starflare?" lieutenant Thrawn's cool voice asked, and she immediately felt at the same time reassured and a bit foolish.

"No – I mean, yes, but I'm not—"

"We should be all right, but it will take a little more effort than I thought."

Punctuating his words, the "Empire's Revenge" took a hit that made Wynssa sit rather abruptly on the machine's bench.

"Tell me," she shot back, "do you work at this incredibly detached attitude, or does it come naturally?"

_Oh stars, tell me I didn't say this just now. He'll think I'm the galaxy's worst shrew_.

"It's just like your smart one-liners, Wynssa," the cultured voice said. "I have found it serves me best. But I really called to ask for your help."

_My **what**?_ "Anything you want, but how could I possibly—"

"Captain Corlag has met with a little accident. It would be quite useful if you could send a wide-range message on all frequencies, asking for help as convincingly as you know how."

She stared at the comlink in her hand. What in _stars_ was he up to now? "You want this message to be intercepted," she said slowly.

She couldn't see him, but she could have sworn he was smiling slightly now, the well-defined lips she remembered well ironic, the strange red eyes glittering. "Again—you understand me so well, Miss Starflare. I apologize that I won't be able to come for you at the gym, but I'll send someone to show you the way to the bridge. Thrawn out."


	8. Anything is Better Than Being Hammered t...

CHAPTER 8

Grimly trying to hold his own in front of overwhelming force, Commander Piett was wondering how they could regain the crucial fifteen minutes, and their past opportunities, lost by Captain Corlag's blustering. He'd recalled the TIEs, because there was no upside in winning dogfights in the middle of the larger space battle, and he'd still hoped to be able to jump. But the "Empire's Revenge" was too hemmed in by the pirate fleet, and taking a beating. Janred's gunners had managed to kill two frigates and one of the Dreadnaughts, but the others kept coming, with the added firepower of those sublight torpedoes whose characteristic sonic impact he was learning to dread. Shields were dangerously down, and he could see the likelihood of a hull breach closing in.

"Helm: give me a 20% yaw starboard rotation, _now. Weapons: ion energy reserves report!"_

"Reserves at 42% in uninterrupted fire, 60% if we give it a 20-minute recharge," Mikam's tight voice said.

_I don't have 20 prakking minutes, but it's obvious the kid knows it. Piett refrained from swearing, and ordered another salvo at one of the reconfigured Dreadnoughts. Studying hurriedly the tac holo, he noticed Thrawn had stepped to Mikam's console and was talking quietly to the young weapons controller. "Sir, request permission to temporarily relieve Lieutenant Mikam!"_

_What the— "Permission granted, lieutenant." __I have to assume this one knows what he's doing. And that he'll tell me what he's up to... Mikam slid out of his station, and Thrawn replaced him immediately. Another hit shook the "Empire's Revenge" superstructure. __And whatever it is, that he can swing it fast._

                                                                 ***

_I simply can't believe this guy. Rory Mikam hurried down turbolifts and gangways, a grin of unholy glee on his face. __Theel would blow a gasket if he knew. If we ever get out of this, I'll make sure he finds out. Heh._

He reached the secondary aft gymnasium easily, palmed the door open, and called out into the large empty room. "Miss Starflare?"

Sure enough, it was the holostar, coming out from behind a stepper, although it took him a half-second to recognize her in the baggy mechanic's overalls and cap. "Hello, lieutenant."

"Lieutenant Thrawn sent me," Rory started, more intimidated that he would have wished. She _did have a wonderful smile. And those eyes..._

"Yes, he told me you'd be coming to get me. Where are we off to?"

"Secondary bridge comm station. This way."

Mikam led the way at a brisk trot, but the star was in shape and kept up easily. "Did he tell you exactly what he wants me to do?"

Rory grinned. "He said he'd be 'grateful if you could give a Golden Cos performance', whatever that means." They'd reached the turbolift bank, and he hit a code on one of the panels. "We'll have the secondary comm station to ourselves. I'll set up the transmission, and you'll do the talking." The turbolift arrived, and they rushed in. Rory pulled a datapad from his pocket. "Here, he gave me that for you."

Wynssa Starflare took it and started studying it, muffling an exclamation.

"What?"

"Lieutenant Thrawn has a nerve, and you can tell him I said that."

Mikam stared at the beautiful, fine-boned face in some worry. If she meant to be difficult... But no, she was smiling again ruefully. "Not that it will make any difference, I expect. He's got us all dancing to his tune, hasn't he?"

_Boy, that woman is hooked. **When did Thrawn have the time to pull her? Cool operator. Forget Theel, Corlag would go ballistic. "There we are," Rory announced as the turbolift doors opened. "This way."**_

Their steps rang out eerily on the durasteel deckplates of the empty secondary bridge. Rory ran to the main comm station, flicked the console on, and started setting up a wide-ranging subspace audio transmission on every military and civilian channel available. When he finally raised his eyes, he was surprised by the transformation in Wynssa's entire demeanor. Outwardly nothing much had changed. _But her expression_... He rose and nodded her into the seat. She stepped up, carefully laid aside the datapad, and grasped the edge of the console.

"Help us, please help, anyone, help! This is the "Empire's Revenge", a star destroyer, we've been attacked by pirates, the Captain is injured, his officers are dead, the bridge is destroyed, we need help! We're one day out of the Tauron system, please help! I'm the Captain's fiancée, I don't know how to give a more exact position, please help! The "Empire's Revenge", seven days out of Chandrila, bound for Coruscant, help! Please help!"

_I'd believe her, and I've just watched her do it_, Mikam thought, awed. The note of desperation in her voice was heart-wrenching with panic and fear. He nodded at Wynssa and she stepped back from the console. He grabbed the datapad and slammed it into the sound receptors with a great crash. _Yup, that'll do fine_. He grinned at the holoactress and switched off the console.

                                                                 ***

"You want **_what_**, lieutenant?"

"The only way to make them stop pounding us and leave us enough space to make the jump is if they board us, sir. So we have to convince them to board us."

Piett stared at the alien lieutenant, unsure whether he should burst out laughing or tear his hair out. "They're not going to come in exactly unarmed," he hedged.

"No, sir, but we can make them believe we're in far worse shape than we are. We could fix a couple of smoke bombs from the Delta reconnaissance shuttles just outside the bridge viewports, and it will look as if the bridge was in flames. The same for the power cores, and for the aft TIE hangar, so that they try and board from the other one. And in that one we can have two companies of stormtroopers to greet the boarders, and complete communications dampening so that they can't report back to their officers it's a trap."

"What about the emergency hatches? They'll probably send boarding parties through those as well."

"I'm less worried about the emergency hatches, sir," Thrawn said dismissively, and part of Piett's mind noticed how effortlessly the strange alien lieutenant slipped into the language of command. _I wonder what kind of world he comes from, and what their military is like. Unless he got all this from the Academy, but they don't especially encourage that kind of outside-the-box thinking at the Academy_.

"That's narrow enough that small squads of Colonel Tyfas's troopers can pick intruders one by one, and smaller dampening fields can be arranged pretty easily," Thrawn was saying. "But we'd better move on this now, sir."

Piett considered for an instant the young man standing at the relay weapons status station. _I suppose almost anything is better than being hammered to space debris. But I also trust this one to come up with something creative_. "And talking of jumping space, what happens to the boarding ships?"

"Frankly, sir, I don't much care. They either explode, or jump along in our hyperspace shadow, I'm not sure. But once we're hidden two light-seconds away alone with them, they won't be much trouble."

_Cool customer_, Piett reflected. _I don't think I'd like to get on his bad side_. "All right, we'll go for it. Send spacetroopers to fix those smokescreens smartish. Then we'll have to hope that whoever is in charge out there takes the hint."

The thin blue lips stretched into a wolfish smile. "Oh, I think they will, sir. I've just baited it."


	9. You're Not Going to Walk All Over Me

CHAPTER 9

Wynssa Starflare was turning out to be a regular guy, Rory Mikam reflected. Thrawn had told him to get her as inconspicuous a job as possible until the danger was past, and the two of them found themselves drafted into an emergency detail containing a fire started by a direct sublight torpedo hit into one of the "Revenge" 's fuel reserves, rerouting the intact fuel cells. Rory had considered for half a minute leaving Wynssa at it, but he wasn't sure Thrawn would have wanted her alone in a potentially explosive area. _And when did I start taking orders from my pal Red-Eyes? he asked himself wryly. Anyway, the civilian engineer in charge of the detail had bawled him out for slowing down the movement; and there he was now, ordering especially clumsy, not to mention reluctant, kitchen droids to stock energy packs among the durasene tanks, in the middle of an indescribable mob scene._

"You want to keep the tritium bars well away from the durasene!" Wynssa shouted. "One teeny-weensy shock and you'll get a really nice bonfire!"

_Kreth. That means I've got half my work again cut out for me. He looked up at the holostar operating a forklift hovercar with considerable expertise. One strand of blonde hair was now stuck to her sweaty brow, and she sported a soot stain on her left cheek. She still looked like a gazillion credits. "How come you know this? Come to think of it, where did you learn to work a forklift car?"_

The fork zoomed down next to him, deposited a pile of fuel cells within easy reach of the closest kitchen droid, hiked back up with a _clang._

"Long story short, my parents have a refueling station at Gus Treta, that's in the Corellian sector. I can't say I liked the work, but I could do it half-way decently when they nagged me enough to make myself useful."

"And now you're a major holostar, Navy captains fall about to give you the run of their Star Destroyers, and zingo, you're back at fuel detail again. Ain't life a bitch."

She burst out laughing. "Tell you what, Lieutenant Mikam—"

"Rory."

"Tell you what, Rory, I'm sorry if I shouldn't be saying this, but this is a lot more fun than dinner with Captain Corlag. What happened to him?"

Mikam packed off the indignant chief kitchen droid with a consignment of tritium bars, turned back. "I biffed him one."

"You _what?"_

_Zoom, plop, clang. Another half-tonne dispatched. They were getting pretty good at this, he reflected._

"You've seen a bit of what Corlag is like. That's when he's sober. When we got the red alert, he showed up on the bridge an hour late, drunk as a Drall, and started to frell up, pardon my Hutt, all of Commander Piett's battle plans. Your boyfriend's too. When he—"

The lift stopped abruptly, the fuel cells balancing awkwardly in mid-air. "My _what?" Wynssa asked awfully._

"Thrawn. When he—"

"Lieutenant Thrawn is _not my boyfriend," she enunciated carefully, depositing the fuel cells with extra caution._

"Oh come _on, you like him and he sure likes you. In the past day or so, he's been behaving a lot more normally than I've ever seen him, and I bet you're the reason why."_

_Clang. "I don't suppose I can make you change your mind, lieutenant."_

_Zoom. "Nope."_

He sent off another droid, looked up in case she _really was mad, but she was grinning again. "Well, we'll see about that. Have you known him long?"_

"Thrawn? We've been bunking for nine months now, but truth is, I don't think I ever knew him until yesterday. Which ain't telling much. Don't tell me this is the last load!"

"Sure is." She wiped her face with the cap, smearing more soot, pulled it back on. "What do we do now?"

Mikam looked at her with narrowed eyes. "Look, I've got to get back to the bridge, but now I've seen you operating this, I wonder if you couldn't come help one of the gunnery teams. We were short to begin with, and what with the hit that got Captain Corlag—"

"I thought you did?"

"_Kreth! Sorry, Wynssa, but you're not really supposed to know that, okay?"_

She nodded and climbed down from the forklift hovercar. "Not a word, but you _will tell me that story, won't you?"_

She really had the most brilliant eyes he'd ever seen. He grinned. "It's a deal. This way."

                                                                 ***

Commander Piett eyed the non-human lieutenant standing at attention next to the relay weapons status station with a mixture of fascination and irritation. Thrawn was proving to be by far the best tactician he'd ever met in any staff. He was also demonstrating a sneakiness that had just crossed the line from brilliant to duplicitous. This, Piett told himself, definitely had to be nipped in the bud. He cast a quick glance around to check that there was no danger he'd be overheard, unless he raised his voice, something he was not in the habit of doing. He didn't want any more hostile reactions to Thrawn among the rest of the officers than absolutely unavoidable. But that didn't mean he was going to give the lieutenant an easy go of it.

"Let me get this straight. You organized this broadcast by Wynssa Starflare behind my back and had one of your fellow-officers send it out _before_ I'd approved the notion of getting those pirates to board us?"

The other nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Tell me, lieutenant, what part exactly of the chain of command is not entirely clear to you? _Why_ did you do this?"

"I felt we had very little time before we were completely destroyed, sir."

"**_All_** of us here felt there was very little time before we were completely destroyed." _Except possibly that ass Corlag, and I've just all but sanctioned young Mikam's outrageous initiative, which would have gotten him shot for mutiny by most of the COs I've served with. But Mikam never premeditated this coldly_. "Let me make something crystal-clear, lieutenant. I value about everything you've contributed to this battle. I don't know how you got Starflare to send out her message, but it was absolutely brilliant, and the fact that nothing has hit us in the past five minutes may mean it _did_ get us where we wanted. All the same, if you _ever_ pull another of your little tricks without clearing it with me first, I'll have you demoted to private faster than you can switch this console on. I don't give a frell how irregular your thinking is. You can walk all over the manual for all I care, but you're not going to walk all over _me_, is that perfectly understood?"

The glowing red eyes held Piett's gaze for an instant, then Thrawn nodded.

"I understand, sir."

"Good. You may not have had enough experience of being—trusted—by your superiors here; but I assure you this does not apply in my case. As long as you give me no reason _not_ to trust you. Got me?"

Another bob of the blue-black hair. "Aye, sir."

"Now let's see how this boarding party is moving, and I want the sublight engines prepped. Trooper report?"

"Colonel Tyfas's men are deployed in Hangar Bay 2, and ready, sir," Thrawn's cool voice said.

"Excellent. Let's spring that trap."


	10. I'm Beginning to Dread This Oversmooth C...

CHAPTER 10

Per Theel couldn't believe his eyes. Mikam had returned from wherever that jerk Piett had sent him, with none other than Wynssa Starflare in tow, and he'd set the holostar in the middle of the port turbolaser gunnery crew, doing The Maker knew what, dressed up as a technician. What amazed him most was that apparently, the others hadn't recognized her. Well, it _had taken him a minute or two, but the profile, and one strand of blond hair escaped from the cap, were unmistakable. __That dirty dog Piett. How did he manage to nab Starflare? And why bring her to the bridge? Although it could well be that her cabin had been hit. Anything with viewports and one level down from the captain's ready-room was exposed. That sneak Mikam sure had pulled a cushy job after sucking up to Piett's pet, the blue freak. Rory was all over Starflare now, not that Per could blame him. For a brief moment, Theel had hoped that Piett and his alien buddy would get their comeuppance, but that was before Corlag banged his head against the command station and went out like a light. Drunk, they said, and he could well believe it. Still, Per felt there was something fishy there – it was too bloody convenient for Piett, for one thing. If they managed to scrape through this battle, Theel promised himself he'd go sniff around a bit. Like check out the bridge security recordings. They were theoretically ISB, but he'd long been able to slice into them. It helped quite a bit to know when the surprise inspections were planned. Yup – he certainly would have a look._

***

"You did _what?"_

"Got her to give Janred's second crew a hand. They were short three guys anyway after the big one hit, and she's no slouch with a router. I figured if things turned really downhill, you'd want her somewhere under your eye."

For the second time in less than an hour, Rory Mikam had managed to surprise Thrawn, something no officer on the "Empire's Revenge" had achieved in nine months. His bunkmate grinned. "She's a good sort. Parents have a refueling station somewhere in the Spine, knows one end of a tritium bar from the other, left to make it in holos at 17. Hey, did you realize she's the one who got Corlag drunk?"

Thrawn's fingers froze over the keys of the tac console, in the middle of recalculating the "Empire" 's jump coordinates. "How so?" he asked very quietly.

"Seems the Cap'n showed up in her cabin yesterday evening with a bottle and two glasses, and she got him talking and drinking for hours instead of, er, the alternative. He was still at it when the alarm rang. That a go computation you have here?"

Thrawn shook his head, resumed his work, hit a last key. "Yes. Transmitting now." He straightened up. "Inputting the jump coordinates now, sir," he called to Piett.

"Thank you, lieutenant," the first officer said, his voice not entirely free of relief. "Helm, that's a go: full power ahead, _now."_

They jumped.

***

Colonel Tyfas's troopers' mop-up action had turned pretty messy, Piett told himself distastefully. The pirates' ragtag boarding party – a motley assortment of species with ill-matched weapons – nonetheless fought hard and viciously, setting up explosive charges to try and break away from the stormtrooper ambush in the hangar through the bulkheads. A small party of them had actually managed to escape into the bowels of the "Empire's Revenge", shooting indiscriminately and eventually barricading themselves in a utility room with two hostages. Busy with the microjump – _that_ had worked exactly as planned, with the "Revenge" reverting behind the reddish dying star exactly where Thrawn had predicted, taking with her only a damaged boarding pinnace which he'd promptly ordered blown out of space – Piett had at first left Tyfas deal with it. Unfortunately, things looked pretty much at a standstill now, he reflected, and he'd better find a solution fast. One of the hostages was the ship's engineer, the other one was a cadet, and he didn't dare trust the rabble inside with their lives for very long.

"Commander Janred, you have the conn", he said. "Try and get the damage assessed – we have about six hours to fix things until our friends on the "Judicator" show up. I'm off to see to this pirate incident."

"I have the conn, sir." Janred signaled to Mikam to take over his station as he sat in the bridge command chair.

"If I may, sir?" As Piett spun to leave, Thrawn stepped one careful pace from the tactical station.

"Yes, lieutenant?" _I'm beginning to dread this oversmooth Coruscant voice asking "If I may, sir?" Although to be honest, it's offered mostly good advice so far._

"I wonder if you'd allow me to come with you? I might be familiar with some of the pirates' species."

_Now **that** was probably a good idea._ "Good point. Lieutenant Casrah, take over tac, will you? Come along, lieutenant Thrawn."

They reached the standoff point, some 60 levels below, as Tyfas's troops were exchanging blaster bolts with the besieged pirates. Piett and Thrawn crouched behind a hastily erected barricade made up of lockers and desks.

"Nothing new, sir," Tyfas shouted in the unnaturally loud voice of someone who'd just spent half an hour under fire. "There's food vending machines lining the walls of the room they're in, which provides them with both extra cover and sustenance. We could pull their trick again and blow a hole in one of the walls, but we'd have to pierce all the way through one of the automats as well."

"And they would have killed the hostages long before we were through," Thrawn said.

Tyfas stared at him with a look that clearly meant _And who **are **you to interrupt two superior officers?_ "Colonel, this is Lieutenant Thrawn, who may speak one of the languages the pirates use," Piett said. "How many inside? What species?"

Tyfas threw another assessing look at Thrawn. "At least ten, one Devaronian, one Duros, not sure of the others."

"Who's been negotiating with you, sir?" Thrawn asked.

_When you're not used to it, that accent always throws you_. Piett nearly smiled at the conflicting expressions on Tyfas's face as he heard the alien lieutenant's precise, cultured voice. But the colonel was not one to be distracted long. "The Duros, if you can call shouting behind the struggling body of a hostage negotiating. They're pretty trigger-happy, sir," he said, turning to Piett. "I _hope_ the hostages are still alive, but we haven't seen them in a little while now."

"If the Duros is in charge, he won't have killed them before referring to his leader," Thrawn said. "But he may only be the Basic-speaker of the lot. Colonel, may I ask how many of the main boarding-party you now have in custody?"

"All of the ones we haven't killed," Tyfas snorted. "That's about sixty out of perhaps two hundred."

"Where are they now, sir? And the bodies?"

Tyfas threw him a cold stare. "I ordered the bodies spaced, must be done by now. The surviving pirate scum are in an empty cargo bay, level 54, behind a forcefield, until the Captain or Commander Piett tell me what to do with them." _And I'm ready to space'em the minute they say the word_, his expression all but said out loud.

"They haven't been interrogated yet, sir?"

Piett admired silently the non-confrontational phrasing of the question. _Left to his own devices, I don't expect Tyfas would have bothered with the niceties of an interrogation. But of course Thrawn's quite right on this._ Interestingly, Tyfas himself seemed to understand the implications. "Not yet, but it can be arranged." _He even sounds interested, miracle of miracles for an Army type._

"May I go see them now, sir?"

Tyfas looked from Thrawn to Piett, and the first officer nodded. "Good idea, lieutenant. In fact, I'll go with you."

***

The young lieutenant crouching on the edge of the port crew pit was definitely handsome, Wynssa thought, with that thick short chestnut hair and those green eyes. He was smiling down at her, too. "It's miss Starflare, isn't it? How are you doing here?"

_Fifty-five, sixty, sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five, seventy-eight_. She entered the figure into the wall router controller, as chief-gunner Rotham had shown her, then raised her eyes. "Hello, lieutenant. We must have met at one of the reviews, but I'm afraid I've forgotten your name, forgive me."

"It's Theel. Per Theel."

"Hello, lieutenant Theel. Well, nobody's actually hit me yet, so I have to assume I haven't entirely messed up."

"I don't think anyone would dare touch such a good friend of Commander Piett's, miss Starflare, so I'm confident you're safe."

"I'm sure that would be true if I knew which one is Commander Piett, lieutenant," Wynssa said pleasantly, "but as it is, you haven't quite reassured me yet." A bleep came from the controller: another inventory list had loaded up. "Which means I'd better be careful not to get on anyone's bad side down here. Nice talking to you, lieutenant Theel."


	11. He Gets the Command Chair, the Holostar,...

CHAPTER 11

They looked a sorry lot behind the shimmering forcefield, some standing, most dejectedly sitting – for a few, it was difficult to tell the difference – on the durasteel deckplates, some obviously wounded, all guarded by twelve armed stormtroopers. Tyfas wasn't taking any risks, Piett judged. He could tell a couple of Duros, a Barabel, two Twi'leks, a Rodian, but there were many more species he'd never encountered before. There were even a handful of humans, not overly prepossessing. The stormtrooper sergeant at the door came to attention, and he nodded imperceptibly at Thrawn to take over. _I wonder how he's going to handle this_.

"Good day, sergeant. Could you get me some of the prisoners here? The human in the corner, the first Duros there, that Rodian, the Bimm in yellow, and the Dug."

"Yes, sir – er, what's a Dug, sir?" the sergeant's electronically-modulated voice asked.

"That chitinous creature seated next to the injured Twi'lek. Shackle them individually, send four men, please."

"Yes, sir."

_Interesting. So that's what Bimmisaari natives look like_. And Thrawn could tell the... Dug was seated, which wasn't obvious, to say the least, from his – her? – strangely articulated members.

Soon enough, the five prisoners were brought limping out of the containment field to stand before them. The Dug especially must've been in bad shape – even if you didn't know the species, it was obvious he – it? – was favoring one side heavily.

"Thank you, sergeant. Space the others. We don't need that scum."

Piett held his pace by dint of an almost superhuman effort. The prisoners didn't. The human's face went slack-jawed in alarm, then swiveled to the penned-in group. The Rodian took a step forward, to be restrained by the nearest stormtrooper, while the others around the cargo bay armed their weapons. _Good reflexes_, Piett thought. _I'll have to commend Tyfas_. The Dug and the Duros edged closer together, chattering rapidly. Only the Bimm remained silent. Maybe it didn't speak Basic. 

"_Na ta diva di wonga_," the Duros started urgently. "_Espensi na gotga ta chura!_"

"_Te haka na chura wa hoki,_" Thrawn replied in a space-cold voice. "_Ta fissa!_"

So Thrawn spoke fluent Huttese, did he? A rimworlder himself, Piett was nevertheless unable to detect any trace of an accent. _Talented sonovanek_. Yup, he'd gotten their attention all right.

"Don't think you can stall me," he was saying in Huttese. "We've jumped. Your fleet is far away. We've killed most of your party. You're more expensive to keep than droids, and you're less reliable. I can get all the information I need from you five. Why should I keep the others?"

The Duros started to answer, but the human pirate interrupted him in Basic. "Since when does the Empire employ non-humans? They're just using you to trick us."

"That assumes you still have something I can trick you of," Thrawn said in smooth Basic. "Don't flatter yourself." 

He raised his hand as if to summon the rest of the stormtroopers. The Dug hissed something incomprehensible, and Thrawn's hand froze in mid-air. The alien lieutenant answered a few words in the same hissing tongue, then turned to the sergeant, pointing at the Bimm, the Rodian and the human. "Sergeant. Call up an escort for these three pirates here, have them locked up in the main brig. Have four of your troopers get me the other Duros in there" – a nod at the containment field – "and shackle him to his friend here and the Dug. I'm going to need them and the troopers for a little time. Don't space anyone until I return."

***

Well, well. So it wasn't Piett who'd ordered Mikam to bring Wynssa Starflare to the bridge. That, or the holostar was keeping it quiet to avoid problems with Corlag, which was always a possibility. Still, Per Theel thought, this opened interesting new lines of thought. He cast a quick look around the bridge. Hmmm. Piett and the freak had both vanished someplace. _High time I went and had a chat with my pal Rory_.

***

In the shelter of the makeshift barricade, Colonel Tyfas considered the small group led by Piett and Thrawn doubtfully. "Nothing's much changed this end, sir. What do you want me to do?"

Piett half-turned to his junior officer. "This one's lieutenant Thrawn's baby, Colonel. He has – I assume – a plan."

Thrawn nodded, then walked to the stormtrooper holding the first Duros's binders. He wound the plasteel lead around his left wrist, then, pulling his blaster from his side-holster, nudged the shackled Duros toward the half-blocked entrance to the besieged utility room. He stopped about mid-way, still shielded by the Duros's body, and shouted out something which got answered by a blaster bolt. Immediately, the Duros started yelling.

"What's he saying, sir?"

"No idea," Piett said, "but at a guess, it would be 'stop shooting'."

It had worked, too. From the utility room came a voice in the same unknown language, then the screech of some heavy piece of metal being moved, and finally one of the pirates appeared, shielding himself behind a young human in olive-green uniform whose hands and feet were tied. The pirate was a Duros armed with a laser machine-gun.

"That's cadet Lynan, sir," Tyfas whispered.

Thrawn said something which got the Duros pirate shouting back furiously. Eyes closed, the young cadet looked very scared, _as well he might_, Piett thought. Thrawn's voice replied on the same even tone he'd used from the beginning of the incident. _He'll have to tell me what this was all about_. The sibilants went back and forth, and finally, the besieged Duros released the arm that half-choked Lynan, and gave a shove in the young cadet's back that almost threw him to the ground.

"Come to us, cadet," Thrawn called out in Basic. "You're being exchanged for this character here."

Sure enough, he'd released the Duros's lead. In the dead silence that had fallen on the scene, the two prisoners shuffled slowly toward one another, their legs hampered by their respective bonds. At a sign from Tyfas, two troopers stepped out to help Lynan as soon as the exchanged Duros vanished inside the utility room. The kid was shaking badly, Piett saw, which honestly couldn't be held against him. "Nice job," Tyfas conceded, assessing Thrawn with alert eyes. "What did you tell them? What next?"

"What I said so far doesn't much matter, sir, it's what the Duros prisoner I just sent in will tell them – that we're about to space all the survivors save a couple. He's obviously either their leader or the deputy of the Dug we have here. I'd give them ten minutes to get _that_ message, then we can start negotiating again."

***

"Hey, Rory."

Mikam raised his eyes. Theel had sauntered from the relaying comm station to the weapons station Rory had temporarily taken over from Lieutenant-Commander Janred. Strictly speaking, they were still under orange alert conditions, but the atmosphere on the bridge had considerably relaxed after the microjump. Stationary behind the system's red dwarf, the "Empire's Revenge" had powered down to conduct a thorough check of the damage undergone in the recent battle, and as many repairs as could be undertaken outside a proper shipyard. At every station, checks had been run, and whoever had completed his had practically nothing to do until they powered up again. He could see two of the sensor techs having a quiet game of traveling sabacc, throwing a dice in a transparent cube to simulate the randomizer; and Casrah was reading a datapad. Mikam yawned – they'd only slept a couple of hours, after all.

"Hi, Per. Everything okay your end?"

"Sure. Say, how did you manage to hook up with Wynssa Starflare? What's she doing with the gunnery crew?"

"Hook up— Hey, Per, I _wish_," Rory said, thinking fast. "Piett worried that her quarters were too exposed. He sent me to get her here."

"Ah?" Theel said, looking hard at his bunkmate. "Now that's funny, she just told me she doesn't even know which one of us is Piett."

_Kreth_. "Well, she's a holo actress, whaddya expect? For all I know, Corlag told Piett to do it, and he farmed it out to me."

"Could be," Theel said in a tone that sounded all but convinced. "Frelling convenient for Piett that Corlag ain't here. He gets the command chair, the holostar, and the blue sidekick."

_I **so** don't like where this is going_. "Corlag was drunk as a Drall and he practically fell down on me. If you'd locked him in a bedroom with Starflare, he wouldn't have been able to get to first zone."

"Yeah, well, Corlag's been under the weather before. Never stopped him until now. So what I'm saying is, it's prakking convenient, know what I'm sayin'? And if ISB finds out bloody alien-lover Piett rigged this somehow, Piett can kiss his rank squares goodbye."

_Frell_. "In your dreams, Per. Wasn't Piett doing the drinking, it was Corlag. Dunno how you can rig that."

"Oh, I'll find out somehow," Theel said. "Trust me, I will." 


	12. If They're Space Junk, They Won't Talk

CHAPTER 12

Chief Engineer Bron hid his shakes better than the young cadet, but it was obvious he'd thought he wouldn't get out of this alive, Piett judged. A tough-looking, middle-aged Rimworlder, he'd understood part of the negotiations, and thanked Thrawn profusely when all was over. "I hope I can make this up to you one day, kid," he was saying, which brought a smile to Piett's lips. _I don't think many have ever called Lieutenant Thrawn "kid". Thrawn replied in an unexpectedly respectful tone, calling Bron "ta Chuba", "Ancient One" in Huttese – and, as Piett well knew, a mark of great consideration. __Now what's that all about? But even though the pirates had finally surrendered, the situation still required a bit of attention. More than that, in fact – Thrawn and Tyfas sounded close to a slanging match._

"What's all this? What seems to be the problem, Colonel?"

"Lieutenant Thrawn seems to think he has authority over my prisoners, sir," Tyfas answered curtly.

"Sir," Thrawn started, "I don't think the prisoners should be spaced. We promised them their lives in the negotiation."

"_You promised," Tyfas spat. "At any rate, you can imagine how I care about guarantees given to pirates under duress. How do you think they'd behave in our place?"_

"That's irrelevant, sir" Thrawn said coldly. "What I'm saying here is that this story will be known, and any other Imperial officer caught in a similar situation will no longer be able to negotiate."

"If they're space junk, they won't talk."

"Do you intend to execute the troopers who'll space them, _Colonel? And then the ones who carried out the executions? What do you think this will do to ship's morale?"_

"I'll thank you to leave questions of ship's morale to your superiors, _Lieutenant," Tyfas said frigidly. _

_Time to step in. "Very well, I'll take that decision," Piett said. "The prisoners are not to be spaced. Have them all transferred to the lower-level brig, after sending whatever inmates we have there to another detention area. I don't want to mix this bunch of murderers with our own people, but I'm not about to let it be said that the word of a Naval officer is worthless. Besides, they might have useful information for our coming assault on their main fleet when the "Judicator" joins us. Lieutenant Thrawn, you speak their lingo, you're in charge of that. You have two hours to come up with useful intel. I'll see you on the bridge."_

***

Per Theel had decided to go check on captain Corlag in the "Revenge" sickbay. What he certainly hadn't expected was this... _zoo_, with what looked like dozens of repulsive aliens and dirty-looking humans crowding the place, being examined by Too-OneBee droids or nursing assistants under the watchful eye of armed stormtroopers.

"What the _frell_— You, there! What's going on here?"

Several droids ignored him. He was luckier with the stormtrooper sergeant. "Lieutenant Thrawn's orders, sir. He sent the prisoners he's finished interrogating to be patched up."

"He _what_? Who the _kreth_ does he think he is, wasting our med bay resources?"

The sergeant, possibly wary of assenting to criticism of one officer by another, prudently stayed silent. Theel pushed his way into an inner office, where another of the... _creatures_ was being examined by a Too-OneBee. _I've never seen anything uglier in my life. How can you tell which are legs and which are arms? Yechh. It looks like a giant, bad-tempered **locust**_.

"Your chest will be fine, but I can't do anything for the limp. You broke all your hind legs far too long ago," the med droid said, in a curiously warm baritone. _Probably programmed for optimum bedside manner._

"Yeshh. Podrasshhing accident, very bad, nearly kkilled me. Fankss for trying. I was a great sshhhampion thhhen. Femaless all loved me."

"I'll schedule medicine for you. You can go."

The _thing_ picked itself – _himself?_ – up slowly from the examining table, but Theel didn't wait for it to leave the room. "I've come to see Captain Corlag. Where is he?"

"Cubicle one, but he's still sedated and sleeping," the Too-OneBee said. "He has concussion."

_Blast_. "So why aren't you taking care of him instead of this _menagerie_? How would you even know what to do to them anyway?"

"Most galactic species have been registered in our databanks for centuries," the droid said with dignity. "I hadn't seen a Dug in fifteen years at least. This is excellent practice."

"Practice for what?" Theel said brutally. "It'll be a lot more than fifteen years before you see another, I can tell you."

Jostling his way past the limping Dug, Theel walked out of the office again. He could see a row of numbered doors at the far end of the main room. Pushing his way through the distasteful crowd, he reached door one and palmed it open. Corlag's massive, snoring bulk, covered by an infirmary synthlin sheet, took up a regulation cot to the last centimeter. "Captain?" he called out in an undertone.

No response. Corlag was dead to the world. Theel shifted from foot to foot irresolutely for a minute, then looked around the small cubicle. Sure enough, Corlag's uniform hung in a locker at the foot of his cot. Theel pulled the datadisk he'd meant to show him, and slid it into the uniform jacket upper left pocket. There would always be time to alert Corlag to it later.

Per Theel sauntered out of the cubicle, crossed the mob scene one last time, and left the "Empire's Revenge" sickbay. He never noticed the Dug who'd followed him to Corlag's cabin, and soon appropriated the datadisk from the unconscious captain's pocket.

***

No sooner had Theel left his post that Rory stepped up to the relaying comm station his bunkmate had just vacated, and called up the console's cache. Sure enough, the little gopher program he knew Theel used to slice into ISB recordings had last run barely five minutes before. _I am now officially screwed._ His stomach constricted painfully. _GBH on the person of the captain – if they don't shoot me, I'll end up in the spice mines of Kessel_. He didn't dare access the recording so soon after Per – it was the sort of irregular activity the ISB programmers were bound to flag. _Only one solution now._ He looked up. Yes, Piett was back – without Thrawn, but that didn't much matter right now. Bracing himself, Mikam walked up to the First Officer.

***

A high-ranking officer – she could tell from the multicolored squares on his left breast – with a pleasant face, alert grey eyes and an assured manner stepped up to the edge of the port crew pit and greeted Wynssa. "Hello, miss Starflare. I've come to release you from duty. This rookie been giving you any trouble, chief-gunner Rotham?"

"No, sir, she's been good help. Rethel and Fark got hit by debris early one and we were really short."

"Well, you have time to get replacements from another section now, haven't you?"

"Aye, sir," Rotham said.

_This one has to be the famous Piett. **Vast** improvement on Corlag_. Piett walked to the side of the crew pit, at the top of the stairs, and she climbed out a little self-consciously, suddenly very aware of her borrowed overalls. "I was very impressed by your performance on the comm," he said politely.

"Did— did everyone hear it?"

"Oh, no. Well, on this ship; I've no idea who caught it outside. Lieutenant Thrawn replayed it for me."

Instinctively, her eyes scanned the bridge to see if she could spot him. This was not lost on Piett. "He's still interrogating prisoners in the brig. No doubt you will see him at some stage. Now, miss Starflare, I'm sure I have absolutely no authority over you, but perhaps I should make you aware of the situation for the next few hours. Thanks to Lieutenant Thrawn, and to your inspired piece of theater, we were able to jump a short distance away from the pirate fleet which attacked us. We will shortly be joined by another Imperial Star Destroyer, and shall return to attack them by surprise and destroy them. This battle will be very different from what you've just experienced, and we'll win it. However, I don't believe it would serve anyone's purpose to have you spend it in a gunnery crew. I have made sure that your cabin is in fact intact. Captain Corlag is in sickbay, and I don't expect he will recover before the pirates are defeated and we have to report to the admiral currently on the "Judicator". What I would suggest, if that is agreeable to you, is that you return to your stateroom and become once more the honored guest we have been happy to convey to Imperial Center."

_Yes, this one is quite impressive._ It was the voice of reason, of course. Why did she suddenly feel as if a grown-up had put an end to an afternoon's frivolous play?

"I understand, Commander," she said.

He looked at her and smiled. "Don't look so desolate, miss Starflare. I understand from Lieutenant Mikam that you are aware of – recent irregular events. If we tie up every loose end by the end of the day, the likelihood of a court-martial for myself, or any of the officers on my staff, will recede considerably."

"Could it—?"

"Not if I can help it," he said with steel in his voice.

They were much of a height. She looked into the intelligent grey eyes. "I can't imagine why you're not a captain already."

He burst out in a short laugh. "I can give you any number of good and bad reasons, but please tell me you won't say anything of the kind to the Admiral when you meet him?"

"You mean my recommendation will _not_ carry weight with him? I don't think I'll recover."

He smiled. "I should rather think _he_ will not recover. We understand one another, I believe. Lieutenant Mikam will take you back to your cabin. I'll see you after the battle."


	13. Your Expressions Are Priceless

CHAPTER 13

"He _what?"_

Why did people always seem to ask him that question of late? Rory Mikam looked into Wynssa Starflare's huge bright blue eyes, and promptly forgot his irritation. "Sliced into the ISB bridge recordings. It's not even that difficult, I've done it myself to find out about surprise assignments. There's enough to get me shot there, except I suppose Per wants to make it look as if Piett put me up to it."

"The Imperial Security Bureau _records activity on the bridge?"_

"You bet. Captains with Rebel sympathies don't live long in the Imperial Navy."

The holostar stared at him with a horrified look. "Perhaps they simply learn to keep it very quiet... But where else does ISB record the crew? Here?"

Rory looked around him at the VIP stateroom. The sitting-room alone was twice the size of the dorm he shared with Theel and Thrawn, and the furniture made you forget you were aboard a battleship. He would have remembered seeing it before. "I don't think so. Per and me sniffed around enough, and apart from the bridge, all we ever found were recordings of the main briefing-room."

"Well, _that's not terribly efficient."_

"Don't forget ISB _always has agents in the crew." He laughed at her appalled expression. "And any commanding officer worth his rank squares knows __exactly who they are, and is very careful to give them just enough information to keep Armand Isard's goons happy. Not that I'd trust Corlag on this, but Piett ain't stupid, and he's been in the Navy long enough. Rumor says officers keep lists of ISB agents, and swap them whenever the guys get transferred or promoted. But a recording – you can't do much against that."_

"And this—this _womprat Theel has got it now?"_

Mikam nodded gloomily. "I don't know how he plans to use it, but—"

"He took it to Captain Corlag in sickbay," a well-known cool voice said from the doorway. "Fortunately, the good captain was still unconscious. It made it a lot easier to retrieve this."

Both Rory and Wynssa spun to gape at Thrawn, who held a small datadisk between two long blue fingers. The alien lieutenant closed the door carefully, a slight smile playing on his lips. "Really, I could wish ISB had had the forethought to provide cameras in this stateroom. Your expressions are priceless."

***

"_How did you—"_

"Thrawn, you _champ—"_

He waited for half a minute then raised a hand to stop the fracas. "Who needs covert electronics? You'll bring ship's security on us by the simple power of the human voice."

This silenced the others, but only briefly. "See? What did I tell you?" Mikam said. "He _never used to crack jokes before. That's two in one minute."_

"I still don't think I had anything to do with—"

"No doubt I will get your attention in your own good time," Thrawn's voice interrupted. "However, we're getting closer to our engagement with the pirate fleet, and there's one or two details we'd be well-advised to settle."

"Cold," Rory said. "Definitely cold. Does he talk like that when you're alone?"

"He sure does on the comm."

"Don't count."

"It's not like we had any kind of time—"

"If I'd known the two of you were going to gang up like that," Thrawn started in the tone of someone goaded beyond endurance, "I would have kept you as far apart as possible. Will you _please_ be serious for one minute?"

"Got his goat."

"I hope you'll remember how to do it when I've left."

"Count on it."

Eyes glowering, the alien lieutenant took one step into the stateroom, and Mikam retreated hastily behind Wynssa. She burst out laughing, then flung her hands up. "We surrender! We surrender!"

"Yes," Thrawn said glacially, "I suggest you do just that. Because in case you had forgotten, this disk is only a copy. The original recording is still in the protected ISB databanks inside the ship's computer."

That _did_ stop Wynssa and Rory dead in their tracks, as he'd known it would. "First, we must determine what exactly is on it. Wynssa, I would assume your cabin has a data reader somewhere?"

She nodded quietly, pointing at a console at the side of one of the sofas. Thrawn went to it and slid the datadisk into the player. A simulated flatscreen materialized in the holo viewspace.

"They flatrecord only?" Wynssa asked in a surprised voice.

Rory snorted. "You think ISB has HoloNet's means?"

She caught herself. "I wasn't thinking. They'd need a dozen cameras for that. Of course they flatrecord only."

"Precisely," Thrawn said. "The ethernet connectivity would also play havoc with the ship's comm. I don't want to give you false hopes, but it's just possible what they've got here is inconclusive."

On the hovering flatscreen, the scene showed Commander Piett still in charge of the bridge. "Can we fast-forward this?" Thrawn asked.

She nodded. "Let me see. Here."

The silhouettes on the screen became agitated, pirouetting and gesticulating from one end of the forward bridge to the other. A new character erupted from the background.

"That's it! Let's slow down and get some sound—"

"_What the kreth is going on on my bridge? Piett, what do you think you're doing?_"

Fascinated, Wynssa stared at the virtual screen, biting her knuckles. _She wasn't there, of course. Although it would seem she'd seen Corlag only minutes before._ The dialogue with Piett replayed, ending in Corlag's belligerent "_Which of you sorry lot thought up this little wheeze?_" followed by Piett and Thrawn's simultaneous answers. Corlag's nasty jibe drew a sharp gasp from her. "How? _How_ could you stand there and not knock this—this _bastard_ down?"

"Wynssa!"

She whirled to confront Mikam. "I can think of a lot worse words I heard on holo sets _and_ at the refueling station! And you, just standing there—"

"Actually," Thrawn said, "Rory did a lot more than stand there. And even if he hadn't, allow me to share a saying of my people– 'there is no finer gratification than being mistaken for an dunce by an imbecile.' I wasn't about to let my career be destroyed for the sake of scoring cheap points with this incompetent."

She was silenced at that, a curious expression on her face. He smiled a little. "Anyway, we're getting to the best part. Look!"

It went very fast, not helped by the lurching picture as the ship took repeated hits. One minute Corlag was up, the next he could partly be seen between the command chair and the weapons relay comm console, sprawled on the ground, while Mikam called out "_Captain down! The captain is injured!_"

"Let's frame-by-frame it," Thrawn said. "Back up a bit. Turn the sound up."

She obeyed his instructions wordlessly. The three of them peered at the flatscreen where all motion had slowed down to a sluggish pace. The sound rumbled like something hot being poured out of a cauldron. Corlag fell impossibly slowly, the lazy arc broken by the edge of Mikam's console, and briefly vanished behind the young man's back. Mikam's shoulders moved as he stood up and sideways, obscuring part of the scene. The sound swelled up incomprehensibly.

"That's you calling for help. Now let's go back again, normal speed, to check what you said _exactly_."

Wynssa pressed the remote again. "_Turbolasers: on my mark!_"

"_Turbolasers ready!_"

 A crash, a lurch, screams and screeches. They heard the thud of Corlag's fall, then a mumble from Rory which could have been "_Oh, no!_", then more cracks and crashes.

"_Captain down! The captain is injured!_"

"_So it would seem. You'd better call a med droid. Hit his head on your console, did he?_"

"_Y-es, sir._" 

"_Have him taken to sickbay at once. Oh, and, lieutenant Mikam—you'd better make sure the Too-OneBee runs the proper tests before they medicate him. Some treatments are contra-indicated when too much alcohol's found in the blood. Wouldn't want to risk that. Better have it all on record._"

"_Er— yes, sir, just so._"

Even before Piett was finished on the virtual screen, Wynssa had run to Rory and kissed him soundly. "You are _such_ a star! Forgive me for anything I said! That was brilliant!"

Mikam looked bemused if anything, a grin spreading on his flushed face. "Hey, I didn't even know I was going to do it. It just sort of—happened."

"More to the point," Thrawn said, "it didn't get caught on camera. It's possible Theel could have built some sort of a case to Corlag from that shoulder twitch of yours, especially with the bump the captain must have on the back of his head right now, instead of where he hit the edge of your station, but by the time ISB gets this recording, the memories'll all be blurred."

"What I want to know," Wynssa demanded, "is _how_ you got hold of this."

He smiled. "I was simply lucky."

"I _can't_ believe that."

"I assure you, it's true." He held up a hand. "I promise to tell you all about it later, but it's really time for Rory and I to get back to the bridge. The pirates I interrogated gave me some useful information we'll need for when the "Judicator" joins us."

"Oh _kr_— blast!" Rory exclaimed. "I was only supposed to get you to your cabin. We gotta go!"

Thrawn nodded. "Go ahead. I'll see you at the turbolifts in a minute." 

Mikam hesitated only a second. "Oh. Oh—yeah, sure. I'm off." As he reached the door, he turned back, grinning at his bunkmate and the holostar. "Believe me, Wynssa, _you_ did this."


	14. How Hard Is It To Get The Hologram?

CHAPTER 14

Thrawn stared at the open doorway for an instant after Mikam had gone, then turned to Wynssa Starflare. The HoloNet star was still wearing the overalls he had diverted from ship's reserves, now stained with dirt and engine grease. Strands of dune-colored hair escaped from her misshapen mechanic's cap. With her expressive blue eyes, and the streak of soot on her left cheek, she looked vibrantly alive.

"Will he be all right?" she asked, interrupting his thoughts.

"I think so. We can't be entirely sure, because I don't know what Corlag will remember, or if anyone else saw him. Worse, saw that Piett saw him. If they go after anyone, they'll go after Piett first." _But it's Mikam she cares about and laughs with, Mikam she told her family history to._

Wynssa took off the crumpled cap, releasing an untidy, golden ponytail. "Who's 'they'?"

At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to run his hands through her glorious hair. The iron self-discipline that had served him all these years helped him answer dispassionately. "Corlag and the hidebound element in the Navy brass – people who don't like original tactics, don't like younger officers like Piett with no Core ties, don't like experiments like bringing in a non-human in the Navy. I might add that seen from anyone's point of view, there's enough grounds for an accusation of mutiny, you know."

"But Corlag was going to get us killed!"

"That opinion will provide a court-martial board plenty of food for discussion."

"You take things so calmly."

He paused. "Not—always."

"I can't imagine you could ever be shaken by anything."

He took a step closer. "You are mistaken," he said in a low voice.

She glanced up at him then, and fell silent, eyes locked in his. He knew how difficult humans found it to hold his phosphorescent gaze. Somehow, he was not surprised that she would. "I promise you I'll do everything I can to spare him that," he said quietly.

A puzzled look crossed the blue eyes. "Commander Piett?"

_Piett? Now it was his turn to be perplexed. "I meant Rory, of course. I understand how much he—means to you."_

"Rory— Now look here, I'm very fond of Rory, he makes me think of my kid brother; somehow I think Wedge could grow up like that. But what _exactly is this supposed to mean?"_

The "Empire's Revenge" was lying in stationary wait behind the system's red dwarf. Still he was still sure he felt the deckplates rock under him. _Could I have so spectacularly misread this situation? "You told him everything about your family and getting Corlag drunk," he said somewhat defensively._

"Yes." The blue eyes were still intent on his, but their corners crinkled now. "I did."

"You were joking as if you both thought of the same thing at the same time."

Her smile widened. "That's right. We had a good number going, Rory and I." Unexpectedly, she reached out and took his hand. "Come sit here."

The touch of her fingers was electric. His hand closed tightly on hers, and instead of yielding, he pulled her to him. "There is no time now. I'm sorry if I offended you."

"Of course you didn't offend me. In fact I _would like you to watch out for Rory, because he's a friend. Yours and mine. But I want you to watch out for yourself too, do you understand?"_

The slight Corellian intonation in her voice was intoxicating. He drew her nearer. "I _hope I do. This time."_

This close to him, she nodded silently, and broke their eye lock. He rested his other hand lightly on top of her shoulder, near a curl of blond hair, very aware that his fingers shook slightly. He could hear her quiet, regular breathing.

"Wynssa—"

"Syal."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Wynssa Starflare is a stage name. My real name is Syal, Syal Antilles."

"Syal," he repeated slowly, trying out the long diphthong, like wine in a glass. "I like it. It suits you."

"My parents were so dead set against my career that I changed it, and my agent—"

His hand moved under her chin and tipped her face upwards. "Sshhh. You'll tell me later." Their gazes locked again, but this time he bent toward her and kissed her lips, gently at first, then more passionately when she started to respond. It was like drowning, he thought, the world underwater, closed around them, silent and different and overwhelming. At some stage her arms closed around his neck, and his just found their place around her, the hollows and curves all at the right places, nestling, holding, always closer. He lost all sense of time for an instant, and the very strangeness of that dislocation brought him back to the surface, some small buoy in his mind reminding him of where they were. He whispered the new name. 

"Syal."

"I—"

"I must go. I'll see you soon."

He felt, more than he heard, her assent. Letting her go was unnatural. He grasped her hand as they unwound, holding to it as to an anchor. "I cannot begin to tell you," he said in a very low voice, "how much this means to me."

Her eyes, again. Wide open, holding his. "Go, now. And come back to me."

He left.

***

Rory Mikam had stopped counting turbolifts after the twelfth opening of one or another pair of safety doors on the lift bank landing. Empty ones were not too bad, but he was getting tired of shaking his head at irritated passengers. What the frell was holding up— 

No, here was Thrawn at last. His palm slammed the call panel again. "Get a move on! Piett's gonna have our heads."

"Yours. I was interrogating prisoners, remember?"

" Of all the ungrateful—oh. Uh-uh. Things going well for you, I see?"

The arrival of an empty turbolift saved Thrawn from answering; They piled into it. "Lucky nek," Mikam persevered, grinning. "She's a great gun. And easy on the eye."

Thrawn's strange red eyes glittered dangerously. Rory's grin widened. Abruptly, the other said "How can you tell?"

"How can I—" He started laughing. "You're serious, aren't you? Well, well. Never thought you'd be the one asking me something. My friend, this is the first time since you showed up in our dorm nine months ago that you don't look like you could freeze a blaster bolt from the moment you hop out of bed. Plus, the delectable Miss Starflare is obviously stuck on you. Plus, you've just spent ten minutes alone with her. How hard _is_ it to get the hologram? Don't they ever get lucky in that place you come from?"

It was a day for firsts. Rory could have sworn Thrawn looked briefly at a loss, another expression he had never expected to see on that handsome blue face. He'd thrown the last question more rhetorically than anything, but to his surprise, his bunkmate answered. "Relationships are—more formal with us. Marriages are partly arranged. Other—relations are not very—sentimental."

_None of us here knows **anything** about this guy, do we? Or bothered to ask. Not that I think he'd have told a thing._ Mikam had a hundred questions for his new friend—_yes, he's that now, funny how I'm so certain_. But the turbolift had arrived at bridge level. It would have to wait.


	15. Becoming The Singing Hutts Duo, Are You?

CHAPTER 15

When Rory and Thrawn ran up to the command level, they found Commander Piett seated in the captain's chair, and everyone at battle stations. Unlike the relaxed atmosphere they'd left moments before, the mood of taut expectation on the bridge could be cut with a vibroblade. _Wonder what happened while we were away._ Seeing them arrive together, Piett raised an eyebrow. "Becoming the Singing Hutts Duo, are you?" He waved Mikam to the weapons relay comm station, and motioned for Thrawn to report. "Well?"

"The leader of the pirate fleet is a Duros who's been hijacking ships on the Chandrilan Trade Spine for over a year, sir, so that would fit the description you had. Name of Kal'tuar. What we saw was more or less all their available warships, although they have a couple more currently being refurbished at the Shi'sla dockyards. The prisoners I interrogated mentioned a base in the Taanab asteroid belt, but I don't believe that's their only one, or even the largest."

Glib, Mikam thought in admiration. There was no other way to describe the ease with which Thrawn was delivering his report, as if he'd really arrived straight from the brig's interrogation rooms, instead of Wynssa Starflare's luxurious VIP suite, presumably snogging with the holostar who'd got the entire officer corps slavering for the past week. _Clever sonovanek_. It struck him that he'd easily trust his friend to lead them into battle. _Wouldn't lose his cool, and there isn't much that'd get past him_. Piett was listening to him, too—Rory had always respected Piett's good sense.

"Overall," Thrawn went on, "I'd say they have an unusually disciplined organization for pirates. Their boarding groups have been drilled by a group of Twi'lek mercenaries who used to work for the Trade Federation, and got laid off after His Majesty sent a Moff and an Imperial garrison to the Nemoidia system; as you know, sir, Nemoidia was settled by Duros millennia ago; they originate from the same species even though they're easy to tell apart now. Anyway, it doesn't look as if the Twi'leks have much to do with fleet tactics; that's largely a Duros affair, which should make them fairly predictable."

"It should?" Piett said mildly.

"I believe so, yes, sir. Duros society puts a high premium on hierarchy. They're inventive enough, and reactive, but they don't improvise."

"Spent some time on a Duros orbital station in your life, lieutenant?"

"No, sir."

"So how come you know the species so well?"

"I've—studied them, sir."

Piett's eyes narrowed. "How exactly? I'm pretty familiar with what little's left of exosociology in the Academy cursus, lieutenant, and it usually isn't enough to help you order a beer in a Rim cantina."

"I've studied Duros art, sir."

"Duros _art_?" Head cocked to the right, a sardonic expression on his face, the "Empire's Revenge"'s first officer considered the alien lieutenant. Mikam, listening in from the weapons comm station, wondered if he'd heard aright. _Art_?

"Art provides the best insight you can have of a people, sir. Duros art puts a high emphasis on symmetry and perspective, but it's never invented much in terms of color, and their abstractions are mostly decorative. They construct things, but they're not mold-breakers."

Piett's face reflected polite doubt. Rory was glad nobody asked his advice—his new pal, he felt, had gone way off the deep end on that one.

"I have to assume you believe what you're saying, since you must be aware how it sounds to me," Piett said with more than a hint of sarcasm. "So tell me, lieutenant, how Duros art can help us one hour before our space battle?"

Thrawn paused for an instant as if marshalling his thoughts, and took a measured breath. "Sir, over the centuries, Duros artists have invented new techniques to fit more subject-matter on planic pictures or in sculpted subjects. They invented, then tweaked, perspective; they refined triptych delineation; they also devised narrative conventions that every Duros understands in order to cram intelligible storylines carved onto fairly small chunks of semi-precious stones. All this is very ingenious, just as they've been ingenious in designing the orbital stations they now live in after industrial pollution made their world largely uninhabitable. But it implies an almost complete subjection to order, because without order, their world can't exist—it would explode." He stepped to the tactical console and picked up the pointer. "So what you must use against them is asymmetry—non-logical narrative. Hit the articulation of a flank, not the center. To attack the lead ship, send out a squadron of TIEs against one structural weakness, and recall them immediately, whether they've succeeded or failed. Use overwhelming fire for fast attrition of their first line of defense, then vanish—microjump to leave them faced with empty space, and microjump back on a different vector. It will gain you the advantage faster than classic Imperial tactics, because they expect those. In fact, I believe it may end in their surrender."

Piett had been staring at the young officer with something approaching fascination, but the last word broke the apparent spell. "Surrender? Pirates? Knowing what they do of Imperial policy to their kind? Not to mention that I'll be hanged if any of them has ever set foot in a museum other than to burgle it. Aren't you being a tad fanciful, lieutenant?"

"Sir, I believe I'm right, but I realize this is an unconventional view."

"I'll say it is. At any rate, you can see why I don't plan on presenting it to the "Judicator" 's commanding officer."

The blue-black hair shimmered under the bridge's harsh artificial lighting when Thrawn nodded. "I do, sir, but does that prevent you entirely from using some asymmetrical tactics?"

"You mean, without explaining why?"

Thrawn nodded again.

"More of your sneaky tricks, lieutenant Thrawn?"

"Sir," the alien lieutenant said, "I said I would not go behind your back, and I don't plan to do so. It all comes down to whether you believe my ideas have any merit, and my tactics will work."

Piett rose from the command chair, and headed to the forward viewport, motioning to Thrawn to follow him. "Do I believe your art theories, lieutenant? No. Do I believe that you're an unusually good tactician, and that you might succeed in throwing the Duros out there for a loop? Yes. So go and devise me a plausible course of action with enough conventional-sounding explanations backing it up that I don't look as if I'd gone off my rocker if I'm asked why I'm suggesting it. Got me?"

Thrawn very nearly smiled. "Aye, aye, sir."

"You've just succeeded in making me behave as sneakily as you, haven't you?"

"Sir—"

"Haven't you?"

"Sir—it doesn't _matter_ if none of those pirates have ever been in a museum or an art gallery. Their mental structures are the same as those of the artists who've produced centuries of Duros art. The art is just a deciphering device, a code-breaker—it's reliable because it's consistent, and it's neutral."

The first officer turned from the starry space view to look straight into the strange glowing eyes. "You take this pretty seriously, don't you, lieutenant?"

"I take seriously any means which permits me to win, sir."

Piett paused infinitesimally. "Yes, I can see that you do. Very well, lieutenant, I'll trust you not to botch this up. Because while you were chatting with the sorry bunch in the brig, we had a subspace communication from Admiral Mordon on the "Judicator." They've got Lord Vader on board, and he'll take a very dim view of _any_ officer screwing up this operation."


	16. Who Are You Fooling, My Girl?

CHAPTER 16

One of the advantages of being a VIP guest, Wynssa had to admit to herself, was her suite's lavish private 'fresher, complete with running water instead of mere sonics. She lowered herself into the ridiculously large Xiquinian marble bathtub and sighed in sheer pleasure as the kinks of her sleepless night and hard day's work on the forklift hovercar dissolved in the steaming water. Not even the thought of Thrawn and Mikam preparing for the next space battle could raise more than a vestigial twinge of guilt. _I'm really a selfish, frivolous creature. She did trust Commander Piett, though—if he said the battle was a foregone conclusion, she believed him. She'd met enough studio bosses, holo directors and Coruscant bigwigs eager to date a successful actress to recognize a good leader. The First Officer was plain-spoken enough that people probably missed out on his obvious intelligence, something that would never happen to Thrawn, no matter how prejudiced anyone was against him. _

_Thrawn's a virtuoso, that's what he is. His unique situation may force it upon him, but I just **know he enjoys the thrill of it, enjoys confusing everyone. She was certain he was just as much of an oddity in his own society. Corellia was a hub for dozens of breeds from all over the galaxy in addition to its three indigenous peoples, enough of whom had made their way to her parents' refueling-station that young Syal Antilles had stopped paying attention to species before she'd started going to school. **__In whatever shape or color, this one is completely off the charts._

She stretched luxuriously in the vast tub and let herself float, eyes closed, remembering their kiss. It had felt so perfectly _right. She trusted her instinct there. He wasn't faking, wasn't playing. __If I'm wrong, he's the best liar in the universe._

And yet how naïve could she get? She'd just had strong evidence that Thrawn _was a consummate liar whenever it suited him. __But he believed I was in love with Rory. She smiled fondly. No, he could get things wrong at times. That was the most reassuring part._

***

Commander Piett looked up from the annotated diagrams Thrawn had transmitted to his command console to check on the bridge crew. They were as ready as they could hope to be. He'd set a double maintenance crew to clear all traces of the previous engagement, and asked Janred to personally oversee the choice of replacement gunners and combat techs. The "Empire's Revenge" officers stood at battle stations, their terminals updated with the latest sensor reports and ship's resources. He only needed to press one key, and the battle plan would be uploaded to every data display on the bridge.

He knew perfectly well why he still hesitated. _Vader. As he'd more than expected—__come to rely on, really—Thrawn had delivered a remarkably competent blueprint, especially considering it had taken him barely half an hour. It still looked unconventional, but alternatives were all set out in logical progression, and due attention had been paid, with an interesting degree of creativity, to integrating the "Judicator" 's formidable firepower and heavy-duty guns. __Wonder if Mordon'll realize he's being made to play straight guy to us. The Admiral might not, but Lord Vader was a question mark. __In more ways than one. The Emperor's mysterious right-hand—__man? sorcerer?—had a fearsome reputation as a warrior, although Piett had no idea whether he had ever been involved in Fleet strategy. Worse was the Dark Lord's notoriously lethal temper. Demerits for mistakes, he'd heard, had a way of being permanent. It looked bad enough that the "Revenge" had had to ask for the "Judicator" 's help. That, no doubt, had been the underlying reason why Corlag had rejected Thrawn's earlier plan. Well, there were times in life when you didn't have a choice._

Corlag. Piett dialed sickbay on his personal comlink. If his inner self chose to call it procrastination, he would simply not listen. "Calling for a report on Captain Corlag's medical status," he told the Too-One Bee who answered.

"The Captain's life signs are satisfactory, consistent with cranial concussion and three-and-a-half grams alcohol blood-level. Recovery should be total in a few days. I'm not sure the Captain is yet capable of coherent communication, but do you want us to try?"

_Great stars. "Certainly not. Your priority is to ensure the Captain's complete well-being and recovery. We especially don't want him to experience the mildest discomfort. Please act accordingly." He disconnected with a retrospective shudder. In all likelihood, the meddroid would now dispense some amount of chemical paradise. __Sometimes procrastination is good._

But there was such a thing as overdoing it. The "Judicator" should be dropping out of hyperspace any moment. Piett decided to take a gamble on both Thrawn and Vader, and hit the "send" key.

***

Watching the battle in fascination from her cabin's viewport, Wynssa couldn't help feeling guilty. _This is not a holodrama. This is not a ballet, not an opera. People are dying out there._

But it was all of those things, silent and magnificent against the starry backdrop of black space. By chance, she had been facing the viewport when the "Judicator" reverted to realspace only a few klicks from them. As the huge arrow-shaped, predatory mass suddenly filled the transparisteel panels, she'd jumped back, overturning the comm center. _So this is what we look like to others. Not quite—Rory had told her the "Judicator", a more recent design, outmassed the "Empire's Revenge" one and a half times. Still, it must be awe-inspiring. She'd only see Star Destroyers in orbit, and had boarded the "Revenge" from a windowless shuttle. Now squadrons of starfighters swarmed between the two huge destroyers as they majestically left the shadow of the dying star in formation._

She had seen the coherent rays and explosions of the battle before being able to make out the enemy. Then, suddenly, the stars in the viewport elongated into a thousand lines and turned milky-white for only a moment, before changing back to normal—and now the battle was all around them, and she could feel in her entire body the vibrations of the turbolaser shots from the "Revenge" 's batteries. _Was that a hyperspace jump? So short? One of the alien pirate ships exploded in front of her in a short burst of molten durasteel, startling her. __There were sentients on that ship, many of them, and now they're light and fire instantly doused by the vacuum. Green shafts of light fired from a spot below her viewport scythed a wing of strange-looking starfighters, then another, and then the starscape stretched once more into starlines, turning to white fog before reverting to immutable, star-studded blackness. __How very strange, like switching holochannels. The "Empire's Revenge" shuddered under her, several times, and she guessed they had fired yet another type of weapon. This time, she couldn't even see the target. The vibrations eventually stopped, but she couldn't have told if they'd had any kind of result. She sat down somewhat abruptly on one of the sofas. It was a strange feeling, witnessing this slaughter from the same overplush setting where the previous evening, Corlag had tried to seduce her, and she didn't like it. _

She knelt down on the deep pile carpet to pick up the comm center's elements, hoping they weren't damaged, and started stacking them back on a surprisingly steady side-table. _Everything's bolted to the floor! Makes perfect sense. The comm center must be a later addition. The remote had slid under the other sofa, and as she retrieved it, she flicked it on to check if it was working. A virtual flatscreen materialized in the holo viewspace, showing—_

_Oh my stars, they forgot the ISB datadisk._

She hit the "eject" command and grabbed the small card-chip. Where could she hide it? Not in the now-pristine cabin—as she waited for first shot to be fired, she had become so nervous that she'd packed all her things, telling herself she was preparing just in case she might have to transfer to the "Judicator" after the battle. _Who are you fooling, my girl? You needed something to do in order not to go completely mad. Her large trunk was locked, and she didn't care to reopen it. She ran the tip of her index finger on the fingerprint clasp-lock of the small personal carryall which contained the few things she didn't want to lose, and cast a critical look inside. Her identicards, her one good necklace, a pair of insulated running boots, a thin Hoth-polar overcoat, her toothbrush and overnight things, the rushes from the Chandrila shoot—_

That would do fine. She slid the datadisk into a pouch among two dozen others exactly like it. When she'd fingered her carryall safely locked again, she stowed it next to the door, then looked up across the stateroom at the viewport. Everything looked becalmed at last. The "Judicator" hung motionless in space at a short distance, hiding one full third of the starscape. She had been right to believe Piett—they must have won the space battle.

At that very moment, a blast stronger than she'd ever felt shook the "Empire's Revenge" like an erupting volcano, throwing her to the floor as alarms blared across the ship.


	17. All Members Of The Antilles Family Are F...

CHAPTER 17

"Bloody hell!"

Flung to the ground by the explosion, a shaken Commander Piett felt a sticky liquid trickling down the left side of his face. His ears were ringing and it took him a few seconds to realize the noise was outside his head as well. Red alert klaxons howled all around him. He knew he had to get back up, quick, but he couldn't coordinate his suddenly rubbery legs. Smoke and sparks obscured part of the bridge amid shouts and screams.

"Direct hit! Hull breach on the secondary bridge! We're venting air!"

"Seal off the—"

It came out as a croak. He forced himself to cough, tried again. "Seal off the bridge, _now!" This time his voice was loud enough, and he felt a twinge of pride. He hoisted himself up, leaning heavily the half-askew command console. "Casrah, get Colonel Tyfas on the comm, fast! I want his space troopers suited up and into that breach in five minutes!"_

"Lieutenant Casrah is—I'll call the colonel, sir."

Young Mikam's voice, unsteady. Turning, Piett could see Casrah's olive-garbed unmoving form, slumped over the main comm station. His gaze took in the port side of the bridge, where most of the ship's complicated electronics seemed to have burst out of their panels in a mess of wires and burnt durasteel. The _Empire's Revenge bridge seemed horizontal enough now, but that was because the gravity compensators had kicked in. It had felt like being kicked upside down, and from what he could see around him, it was pretty much what had happened. Those men who'd been in the way of unsecured heavy equipment would never have to answer for their negligence in checking that everything was bolted fast at any time. __That imbecile Corlag has never run a tight ship in his life, but I'm just as much at fault. I should have pushed for drills no matter what frelling Corlag said._

He pressed a few keys on the command console, to no effect. He _had to know what hit them, fast. "Tactical!"_

"Sir?"

_That one **would come out unscathed from a direct sublight torpedo hit. "So those pirates were going to surrender, **__were they, lieutenant?" he hissed. "Find out which of these Duros failed to conform to your artistic predictions, on the double. And where the prakking __Judicator vanished. Then parallel your controls to the main comm station and take over Lieutenant's Casrah's post; I'll command from the tac station since the captain's chair has been trashed."_

The handsome blue face was perhaps a shade paler, but otherwise expressionless. "Aye, sir. The Judicator seems to have microjumped back behind the red dwarf with—part of the pirate fleet." Thrawn's left hand hit several keys on the tac console. "We were attacked by two ships that weren't part of the original pirate configuration. They—could be the cruisers that were being repaired at the Shi'sla dockyards. I'll find out more."

_He did mention those in his earlier report, Piett remembered, watching Thrawn enter the tactical codes into the network before standing aside from the console. The First Officer took a wobbly step to the tac station. "Lend me your arm, lieutenant," he snapped testily, annoyed that his legs still refused to act normally. Thrawn was at his right side in an instant, offering a firm elbow across the forward bridge. Piett grasped the tac console durasteel casing with relief. "Comm! Get me the _Judicator_'s captain! Weapons officer! Status report, now!" The tactical holo occupied most of the viewspace, with five-second refreshes. "How do I size this down, lieutenant?"_

With his left hand, Thrawn had pulled the station's chair up for Piett, and helped him into it. He called up a side control panel, then stepped aside as Lieutenant-Commander Janred's battered and blackened face appeared in one of the small comm displays. "I've lost half my crews, Firmus. That hit took the aft starboard laser batteries. Levels 31 to 35 are gone—we've had to seal them off. I've got some torpedo and missile launchers left there, and I can rustle you up enough firepower to kill a Theta Shuttle or two, but that's about it. Portside's still structurally intact and armed, but we got human casualties when the _Revenge flipped."_

Piett had known things were critical the instant his old friend had called him by his first name, instead of the rank Navy etiquette demanded—something Janred would normally be the first to insist on. "I was there when the Captain countermanded your drill schedules, Saki," he said wearily. "Now we've got to fix up things as best we can. Draft whatever techs and troopers you want—we're not about to start a land attack any time soon. I'll let Tyfas know. How long will it take before we have 30% firepower?"

Janred frowned. "Probably an hour, but I'll make sure we can at least pulverize one thing out of space in ten minutes' time. Just chose it well."

Piett smiled in spite of himself. "What else do you need?"

"Medics, med droids, whatever you can spare."

Piett looked up. Medical teams, with agrav stretchers and IV drips, had started working the bridge among the debris. "I'll see what I can send. Piett out." He turned to the comm stations. "Where the frell is Colonel Tyfas? And I need a sensor status, now! Lieutenant Theel?"

But the relaying comm station was unmanned. _There's one loss I'm not going to mourn overmuch. Searching the nearest crew pit, his eyes spotted a young officer whose technical bent he'd noticed in the past. "Lieutenant Dorja, can you slave the sensor station to the relaying comm and give me a merged status report? Then come up here and snap to it." He glanced at his wristchrono, and found he'd broken it when he fell, the last reading now frozen behind the shattered transparisteel. One look at the tactical time stamp told him they'd been hit eleven minutes ago. __Why isn't anyone firing at us now? And how long before they start again?_

***

Dazed, Wynssa Starflare tried to pick herself up from her stateroom's plush carpet, and cried out the moment she tried to put some weight on her feet. She couldn't stand on her right ankle. She looked around her in dismay. The furniture was still in the same place, but everything that wasn't bolted to the floor had been violently flung about, _me included_, she thought. The pieces of the comm center littered the floor among the sofas' throw cushions and the shards of the glass she'd drunk a juri juice from. Her small travel bag was wedged between one sofa and an end-table, and she reached for it, clutching it to her. She couldn't see her large trunk at all. _Where in stars can it have gone—_

An angry hiss called her attention to the viewport, and she got her answer. The huge travel chest was strangely stuck mid-height against the transparisteel, and she realized with a sick feeling in her stomach that what kept it there was the pressure of the cabin's air venting into space through hairline cracks. _I'm lucky it missed me—I would have been squished like a ripe moonglow_. Ankle or no ankle, she had to get out, _now_. She had no idea how much pressure transparisteel could take before imploding, and at any rate, the stateroom's oxygen would soon be gone. She hoisted herself onto the nearest sofa, and pulled herself up painfully, eyeing the distance between her and the cabin's door. _It doesn't **matter** if it hurts. Hurt is better than **dead**_. She cried in pain as she hobbled as best she could across the room, the venting air loudly hissing in her ears. Finally reaching the door, she palmed it open, and dragged herself outside, hurrying to hit the exterior lock command. When the stateroom's door swooshed back down, she released the breath she hadn't realized she was holding and stood trembling in the corridor, leaning on the doorjamb.

_I can't stay here. I don't know how much this door can take. I've got to get somewhere safer_.

It was a terrifying replay of the previous hours, and this time, she was crippled and didn't even have a comlink to Thrawn. _I'm never, **ever** not taking public transport again. Doesn't matter if I get invited on yachts, on space limos, on racing craft, on a Golan space station. All members of the Antilles family are flying commercial from now on_. She looked down, and realized she'd dragged her carryall with her. She hesitated, then sat down on the ground, and fingered it open. She had stupidly taken Commander Piett's cue, and changed back into an elegant dress and heels. She might look silly wearing her running boots with this, but silly, too, was better than dead. She slipped her good foot into the left sporting shoe and laced it up and around her ankle, then delicately slid her right foot into the other boot. Searing-hot pain lanced her entire leg the instant she tried to fasten it, but she clenched her teeth and laced up the boot as tight as she could stand—it would give her damaged ankle a modicum of support. She threw her black suede pumps into the carryall, closed it, and passed the shoulder strap over her neck. _There_.

Now to get up again. She managed somehow, but once upright, she looked up and down the corridor in momentary indecision. The bridge was not very far, but it was on the side that had taken the enemy hit. She had no way of telling what shape it would be in if she reached it, or even if it would—still be there. _No. They have to be all right. **He** has to be all right_. But assuming they'd scraped through—and if they hadn't, she didn't want to think too clearly of the consequences—the last thing they needed was to be saddled with their extra passenger's dead weight. She'd made herself useful earlier on, but that was when she could _move_. She took a tentative, wobbly step in the direction of the turbolifts. _Sickbay. I need to get this stupid foot fixed, so that I'm not a millstone lumbering anyone who might help. If I manage to get this in bacta soon enough, it'll be like new in an hour. If I have to wait my turn—_ Bacta worked fastest if applied straightaway, before the tissues had started their own healing process. Then the effect could seem nothing short of magical. But even the perspective of a simple painkiller hypospray sounded too good to pass. She remembered the location of the main med bay, for once thankful that Corlag had asked her to pay it a ridiculous travesty of an official visit. She started limping to the turbolift bank.


	18. I Want Nothing To Do With That Damn Sorc...

CHAPTER 18

""Captain Sansevi of the _Judicator on the comm for you, sir."_

Surprised by Thrawn's cultured, controlled voice on the holo link, Piett spared only a few seconds to remember he'd assigned the alien lieutenant to Casrah's post as well as to tactical. He _had to compose himself enough that whatever he'd say wouldn't sound like a reproach, or worse, an accusation, to the __Judicator's commanding officers, every single one of whom was his superior in rank. __"Where the frell were you while we were being hammered?" definitely wouldn't cut it._

"Piett, commanding the _Empire's Revenge. Sir, we're being attacked by two new pirate ships, provenance unknown. We've sustained extensive damage and casualties. If the battle plan has been changed, we'll need assistance to fulfill our end."_

On the comm holo, the other's strong-jawed face remained stiffly unmoving for a few seconds. "Your situation is perfectly clear to me, Commander," Sansevi said in a carefully restrained tone. "The battle plan was unchanged until now. However, part of the pirate fleet microjumped ahead of us this last time, and launched several wings of fighters. Lord Vader has decided to join the space battle in his own TIE Interceptor, and Admiral Mordon will not allow the _Judicator to leave this vicinity until he's back on board. What's your current status?"_

Piett felt his jaw drop, and clenched his teeth with an audible click. Things were moving too fast for his taste.

"I've lost starboard weapons capacity almost entirely, and half my gunning crews, sir. We're working on restoring 30% of firepower within the hour. We had hull breaches, had to seal off the secondary bridge. Apparently we can still maintain integrity, but I'd be wary of attempting to jump considering the unknowns. Casualties in the hundreds."

"Bogeys still shooting at you?"

"Not this instant, sir, but I don't know what's keeping them," he said bitterly. "One may be partly out of commission—we hammered at it as long as we could with our portside batteries—but I'm blind with nominal shields on the other side. I need a better sensor report—I lost my main sensor officer, and we're breaking in his replacement." Piett cast a sideways look at Dorja, who was working Theel's unfamiliar console frantically.

"We can probably help you with that, at least," Sansevi said without commenting on Piett's report. His head turned half-way out of the holo viewspace, and he was heard ordering one of the _Judicator's bridge officers to train his sensors on space between them and the __Empire's Revenge. "Transmitting now. We'll keep one comm feeder link open and live to you, how's that?"_

Unable to hide his astonishment, Piett rubbed his tired eyes with his left fist. "Thank you very much, sir" he said feelingly. Preempting completely one of the _Judicator's few holocomm channels was unexpectedly generous._

"We should be blasting the scum that attacked you out of space, commander, not playing nanny for His Majesty's favorite sorcerer," Sansevi snorted. "It's a starfighter battle here, their capital ships are in retreat and badly damaged. They microjumped after us this time, but it broke their formation all the same. Weird tactics you had us try out, but interesting." The holo wavered for an instant in noisy static, and Sansevi's figure seemed to stumble. "They've got some teeth left, as you can see, but nothing we can't handle."

***

The med bay, when Wynssa finally limped across its doors, was a roiling emergency scene barely policed by med droids doing summary triage among the press of injured soldiers and techs. She could see burns, crushed and perforated limbs, lacerated and gory uniforms, and suddenly felt very silly, and a little ashamed, with her throbbing ankle. _I got off unbelievably lightly. I'd better go sit in a corner and wait my turn._

She was still looking for the best place to keep out of everyone's way, when a Too-OneBee addressed her in a warm baritone. "Miss Starflare? Have you come to visit Captain Corlag?"

_Oh my stars, is that where they put him? And they remember me from that stupid visit!_

"I—er, I just wanted to know if he was all right—"

"Please follow me, miss Starflare. It's a great honor."

"I don't want to distract—"

"You're an Imperial Guest, Miss Starflare. That gives you precedence."

"No, please, I'd really rather not, now. If you could just let me sit somewhere—"

By that time of course the droid had noticed her limp. "Are you injured, Miss Starflare?"

"A little, but I don't really think it—"

"Your rank is equal to the Captain's according to our programming, Miss Starflare. Please come this way, and we'll examine your leg."

"But there are far worse cases here! Shouldn't you be tending them first? What does your programming say to that?"

By that time they'd entered an inner office, and the Too-OneBee pointed her to the examination table. "Miss Starflare, why do you want to cause me a programming conflict when we can be done in no time?" it said in a chiding tone, sounding so uncannily like one of her aunts, that she subsided, shrugging off her carryall's strap, and meekly climbing onto the daybed. She couldn't repress a whimper when the droid's light metallic fingers sliced through her laces, and pulled the boot delicately off her foot. Her entire leg felt aflame. "You shouldn't have walked on that ankle," the droid said reproachingly. "Can you move your toes?"

"It was that or not getting here at all," she protested. "Is it broken?"

But her toes did painfully obey her, and a scan confirmed she just had a bad sprain. After a painkiller hypo which magically dispelled the excruciating hurt, the Too-OneBee wrapped her ankle in a bacta pack. "If you don't move, you should be all right in a couple of hours. We'll get you installed in a restbay."

Try as she did, she couldn't make it budge from its decision, and she soon found herself lying down on a clean cot in a tiny cubicle, her bacta-wrapped foot comfortably elevated and a painkilling solution drip hooked to her arm. She was a little light-headed from the drugs, and had to admit to herself it felt wonderful. The temptation of sleep beckoned: she'd been on her feet for almost 48 hours. _I really shouldn't be here, but I might as well—_

The click of a door opening was so close that she thought for an instant it was her own. She lifted her head from the pillow, looked around. No-one. _Must be next door. Soundproofing isn't rated necessary in military med bays. Never mind—she was sure she could sleep through another attack._

"Captain! Sir! Are you awake? Captain Corlag?"

Wynssa sat up straight in her bed. She'd only heard it twice, but she easily recognized Lieutenant Per Theel's voice.

***

"Sir?"

Commander Piett turned from his study of the _Judicator's beamed sensor input to see Lieutenant Thrawn standing a couple of paces from the main comm station, looking uncharacteristically hesitant. "Yes? What is it, lieutenant?"_

"Sir, I—believe Captain Sansevi may be in a more difficult situation than he thinks."

Piett waited for further explanations, but none seemed to come. "Well?"

"Sir—logically, these pirates shouldn't have thought of microjumps. But they have—and I—can't assume any longer that they'll have the blind spots I was counting on."

Such an admission of failure seemed to come hard. _Well, all his freakish theories about art have just blown up in his face—and ours. The first officer's eyes narrowed. "Yes?" he said uncompromisingly. "Speak up, man!"_

Thrawn nodded. "They've split us, sir. They could put us out of commission right now. If they don't, it's because we're more use to them tying up some of the _Judicator's resources from a distance. Add to this that the starfighter attacks have leveled the playing ground out there—it's their wings of Uglies against our TIEs, not a motley fleet against the full armament of a __Victory-class Star Destroyer. We're getting hamstrung."_

Piett considered the alien lieutenant with something approaching respect. He was very obviously swallowing his pride and sticking his neck out to offer what he felt was necessary advice. It was not an attitude he'd come across often in junior officers. "Yes," he said again, in a less hostile tone. "So far, you're making sense. What do you suggest?"

"Sir, we _have to join forces with the __Judicator. Or convince Captain Sansevi to jump back here."_

"Captain Sansevi doesn't need convincing," Piett said curtly. "Admiral Mordon does, which is a different proposition."

"If—I understand correctly, _Lord Vader does," Thrawn said in a diffident enough tone to rob his remark of any suspicion of impertinence. "Sir, am I right in thinking Lord Vader's experimental TIE has a hyperdrive?"_

Piett froze. "You are. You're also simply _not going there, lieutenant, d'you hear me? I want nothing to do with that damn sorcerer."_


	19. I Take It You Have An Alternate Plan?

CHAPTER 19

Uncharacteristically, Wynssa Starflare felt like murdering someone. Preferably Lieutenant Theel. _Corlag's a bully and an imbecile, but this one's a nasty bigoted little **sneak**_. If it turned out that he was the only survivor from the bridge, she—

She didn't want to think about it. Not yet. _Would be just like him to run and make mischief rather than fight_. She was being unfair and she knew it—Theel could conceivably be both unpleasant and courageous. _I don't care. He's a miserable little—_

"Captain Corlag?"

_Oh stars. How can I prevent him from rousing Corlag?_ Not that Theel sounded especially successful. Straining, she could barely hear a faint groan from the captain. Still, it worried her. _Why did I snub this little twerp, back on the bridge? Now he'll be immediately suspicious..._

And yet there was no helping it. Stifling a sigh, she threw back the covers and considered the bacta-pack around her ankle longingly. She'd had it on for forty minutes at best, but there was no way she could keep it on, with its cumbersome plasteel splint and gutter, and walk, never mind run. Gingerly, she unstuck the drip from her arm, and started unwrapping the bandages. Between the painkillers and the effects of the bacta, she felt almost nothing. Her naked ankle looked pinkish, but otherwise pretty normal. She looked for her running boots and saw them neatly aligned at the foot of the cot, next to her carryall. This gave her an idea. Rummaging quickly through her things, she found the tracksuit she wore during overnight flights or on pauses during cold location shoots. Being pale blue, it wouldn't be as inconspicuous as her tech's overalls, but it still would look a lot more appropriate than her printed chiffon dress. She changed quickly, shrugged herself into her silver-gray Hoth-polar jacket on top for good measure, then proceeded to bandage her ankle and lace up her running boots again, as tight as she could while the painkillers still kicked in. She zipped her identicards, her necklace and what credit chips she had into the jacket's various inner pockets, gave up on the rest of the carryall's contents, fingered it closed again, and hid it against the wall under the far corner of the cot. She straightened the sheets quickly, pushed the IV frame in the corner after unhooking the painkiller drip bottle, cast a look around. It looked ready for the next occupant, _probably a lot more deserving than I_.

Screwing the bottle shut and pocketing it, she palmed the door open, clutching its handle to slow it down and muffle the noise, and peeked outside. The scene looked a bit more organized, but busy enough for her plan. She spotted an overworked med droid nearby and walked next to it.

"Look, you can't make me wait forever. I came to see Captain Corlag and I want to see him now."

She'd used her clear, carrying stage voice, and sure enough, within seconds, lieutenant Theel's deceptively friendly face showed up at the door of the cubicle next to the one she'd been in. "Miss Starflare! I thought that was your voice! How did you get here?"

Turning away from the droid before it could completely register her question, she looked at Theel with the slightly puzzled, smiling look of someone trying to remember a name to go with a half-familiar face. "Lieutenant—Theel?"

That took him aback, as she'd intended. "We met on the bridge earlier," he said, trying not to sound aggrieved.

"Oh—of course we did. Lieutenant, it's nice to see you, but I was really looking for Captain Corlag. I've been told he's very seriously injured."

_Funny how less nice he looks when he smiles._ "Captain Corlag is here, Miss Starflare," Theel said, looking smug. "I was with him when I heard you."

She riveted her blue eyes to his, with a bat of eyelashes for good measure. "You _were_? Oh, I would so much like to see him! _May_ I?"

It worked every time. _Reekseye_, Wynssa thought dispassionately, watching Theel flush. "Of—of course you may, Miss Starflare! Come with me!"

He led the way to the cubicle with a spring in his step, pausing briefly at the door to whisper happily "The captain has been unwell, but I'm sure he'll be happy to see you."

_What? The plan was **not** to help Corlag get better!_

But she had no choice now. She walked into a cubicle exactly similar to the one she'd just vacated. Corlag's heavy bulk took up the entire cot, and she saw with a wry inner smile that he'd been hooked to the same kind of IV drip bottle she had in her own pocket. _So much for my bright idea to drug him_. She consoled herself by finding out that the captain, lying motionless on his back, truly looked awful. The unshaven shadow on his cheeks made his face look pasty-white, and he seemed catatonic.

"Oh my stars, he really is in a terrible way! Are these droids doing everything they ought for him? Where _are_ they?"

She has kept her voice low, but Theel had obviously decided she would be a perfect enticement to rouse Corlag. "Sir! Captain!" he said brightly, "Miss Starflare has come to see you! Captain? Wake up, captain!"

***

"I take it you have an alternate plan, lieutenant?"

It had taken Commander Piett a few instants to place the lean, grizzled man in a well-worn gray tech's uniform next to Thrawn. _Chief-Engineer—ah, yes, Bron._ Of course: he'd been one of the two hostages Thrawn had managed to get released.

"Sir, since we can't hope to see the _Judicator_ jump to us, I asked the Chief if we were in any condition to jump to her."

The alien lieutenant nodded quietly to Bron to take over, and Piett was once again struck by Thrawn's respectful attitude to the middle-aged noncom. _Not that he hasn't been impeccably formal at all times, but there's something more here_. Never mind now—there would be time later, with luck, to investigate this smaller mystery.

"Go ahead, chief," Piett said as the other cleared his throat.

"Sir, at this moment I can't guarantee ship's integrity for a jump. However, considering there's only a small distance to cover, I think there might be a way—if you're willing to sacrifice a Theta shuttle."

_Sacrifice a—_ It said a lot for what he'd been through in the past hours, Piett reflected, that he didn't even begin to voice his objection aloud. Instead, he gave an abbreviated nod. "No doubt you're about to explain how the thing is done, chief. Or is it one of Lieutenant's Thrawn's creative notions?" He caught the tech's guarded side glance. "No, don't tell me. Well?"

"Sir, this'd be hopeless on any significant distance, but for a twenty-second jump, I think it will work: program the shuttle to jump so that it drags the _Revenge_ in its hyperspace shadow. We'll have to calculate the shadow's cone precisely, but I'd say it can be done. We'll angle the _Revenge_ so that it stays to portside of the shuttle – I guess the shuttle itself won't be able to bear the pull, and will explode upon reversion, but we still have shields enough on that side that it shouldn't harm us."

Piett felt a glimmer of hope loosening the knot in his stomach even before he attempted to put it into words. _Maybe we're not dead yet_. "What are the risks?"

Bron blinked and rubbed his eyes. "Nothing's risk-free, but with this we don't have to start our engines at all—we just glide in and out. No energy-core vibrations, no centrifugal pull from the reactors. We choose the part of the ship that takes the most stress – portside."

_And if his calculation's wrong, we won't be here to complain_.

"Care to give me odds on this, chief?"

The Rimworlder's jaw tightened. "Even chance, sir."

_Not a diplomat, this one_. "Very well, let's do it. There was a Theta Shuttle whose climate controls were acting up at the Chandrila layover; take that one."

A slow half-grin spread on Bron's weathered face. "Yep, sir. The Lycinium. Had it in the shop often enough. Piece of junk'll finally make itself useful for a change."

"How long do you need to prep it? Do you need anything else?"

"Should take less than an hour, sir." The corners of Bron's deep-set, ice-blue eyes crinkled measuringly. "If you could—er—spare the lieutenant for a moment, sir, he could go get himself patched up."

"Go get—" Piett caught a glitter of Thrawn's strange eyes before the pale, handsome features froze again. "What's wrong with you, lieutenant?"

But it was the chief engineer who answered. "Right arm all busted. I don't expect the kid'd tell you, so I did."__

_And I might have noticed before, except that I was busy enough with the damage to the ship._ Now that Bron had attracted his attention, he could see that Thrawn's right arm was hanging somewhat twistedly to his side. _But he helped— No, it was the other arm he gave me to lean on after the explosion. He's been using his left hand throughout_. Piett's eyes narrowed. "What happened to your arm, lieutenant? Why didn't you get a med droid to look at it when they were on the bridge?"

An almost mulish look briefly crossed Thrawn's features, but he replied in his usual cool tone. "There were many in worse shape, sir."

"Well, they seem to have been taken care of. You should have had this seen to long ago."

"Aye, sir," Thrawn said tonelessly.

_Now what's this all about? He didn't look this hangdog when Corlag was screaming at him_. "So get yourself to sickbay, will you? There isn't much to do here until the chief has programmed the Lycinium, by which time I'm sure the droids will have sent you back."

Commander Piett stared at the broad back of the alien officer as he walked off the bridge. _Strange character_. He considered the chief-engineer working at a wall console. _And this one has some keys to the mystery_. He hoped there would be time in their future to find out.


	20. If I've Killed This Nice Girl Trying To ...

CHAPTER 20

When a shuttle-sized craft reverted to realspace and promptly exploded less than a hundred clicks from the _Judicator_, Captain Sansevi's immediate reaction was to train his fore turbolaser batteries at the reversion point. The next flicker of pseudomotion produced a larger vessel than any he'd faced so far in this engagement: only his split-second reflexes prevented him from blasting the limping _Empire's Revenge_'s characteristic triangular superstructure.

"What the _kreth_—Get me the cretin in charge of the _Revenge_ on the comm!"

"Commander Piett just hailed us, sir. Shall I patch him through?"

"Yes, prak it—You! Piett! D'you realize how close you just came to getting your people killed? Why the frell didn't you warn us you were jumping?"

"Sir—my apologies. I was about to comm you when they started pounding us with sublight torpedoes again. We had to attempt our jump sooner than—"

"What was that thing that blew up just ahead of you? Ours or theirs?"

"Ours, sir, but—"

"Who hit it? Sensor officer! Do we have bogeys incoming?"

The lieutenant at the _Judicator_'s main sensor station scrutinized his unblinking array with a puzzled look. Glancing down again, Sansevi considered the younger commander's tense face in his chair's viewspace. Piett drew a controlled breath. "Sir, nobody shot down that shuttle. It blew up on reversion. It was dragging us in. We couldn't jump on our own power."

_Does he mean what I think he means?_ "You seem fond of unorthodox tactics, commander Piett."

"Our chief-engineer devised that one, but—yes, sir. Considering it got us out, sir."

"Out of a mess you jumped into in the first place," Admiral Mordon's sneering voice broke in over Sansevi's shoulder. "What were you thinking, having your popsy broadcast this pathetic call for help? For that matter, what's she doing on your ship? Is this the Imperial Navy or a Twi'lek cruise boat? If that's what you've been doing instead of drills, no wonder the first bunch of sub-human pirates can knock you out of space. Captain Sansevi!"

Sansevi straightened to full attention. Officers who offended Mordon's rigid sense of decorum had a way of drawing year-long assignments in Hutt space—or beyond. "Sir?"

"Prepare to take over command of the _Empire's Revenge_ and oversee her repairs. Her present captain"—a sneer at Piett's quarter-sized figure in the holo—"is relieved and will present a full report by tomorrow. I want proper explanations for this entire fiasco. Meanwhile, I'll assume direct command of the _Judicator_. Is that understood?"

***

_Well. That didn't take long_. Commander Piett kept his attention stiffly on Captain Sansevi's holoimage until the connection was cut off, then, letting a long breath escape, turned away from the tac console and took a moment to survey the _Empire's Revenge_'s bridge. The medics had wheeled all the casualties away, and the debris had been swept; but the missing or unfamiliar faces at their stations told the story, even without the torn and blackened panels and the sealed-off far starboard viewport, its cracks hidden by the plasteel plates hastily soldered in place by colonel Tyfas's spacetroopers. _I certainly made a fine mess of things. Corlag helped. And young Thrawn, although I don't suppose we would have done any better without his advice, and he certainly thought up a creative solution to our jumping problem. Or was it Bron? _He would have to think of a way to shield Bron and Thrawn from the worse fallout in this fiasco. _Or Mikam_. In spite of his bleak prospects, Piett allowed himself a smile. _Goes to show anyone can surprise you_. At the very moment when he'd thought the _Revenge_ and all her crew lost for good, he'd glimpsed Mikam's arrested expression, and surmised something—_interesting_—was about to happen. _I can still hear the_ thud _against Corlag's skull._ It had to have something to do with Thrawn's newly-won influence—now _there_ was an unusual friendship—but Thrawn would never have pulled something so beautifully straightforward. Piett's eyes sought the junior lieutenant at the comm station, and nodded fractionally. "Commander Janred, lieutenant Mikam, you're with me. We'll meet Captain Sansevi at his shuttle."

***

To Wynssa's distress, Captain Corlag was slowly emerging from his stupor. He had managed to sit up with Theel's help, grunting and holding his head. His bulk occupied almost the entire cubicle. _Theel's clucking about like a distressed nuna. Of course, it's harder work sucking up to someone who's barely conscious_.

"Sir—we need you on the bridge! Commander Piett can't hold his own in this battle—"

"Piett'shh 'n old woman," Corlag growled. "Duzhh—doeshn't—know—a Shtar Deshtruyer'sh meant to deshtroy—My headsh—"

"Can't you see the Captain's seriously unwell?" Wynssa urged in an undertone. "What if his concussion is worse than it looks? We'd never forgive ourselves if—"

"TshMissh Starflare. Shouldn'tsh worry your purrty headsh. I'll protectsh yoush. Got a hard headsh—"

He made the mistake to shake it, and groaned awfully. "You should be in bed!" Wynssa exclaimed. "Really, Lieutenant Theel—"

"Miss Starflare, I know you mean well, but you've no idea what we soldiers are used to withstand," Per Theel snapped.

"Perhaps I don't, but I _do_ have some first aid training, _lieutenant_, and I can tell you Captain Corlag should remain under medical care. Concuss—"

Theel's hand grabbed her arm. "Come this way a minute, miss Starflare," he interrupted, leading her firmly outside the cubicle. She was so surprised she didn't resist. "Now, miss Starflare," he said in an urgent undertone, "there's something you can't possibly know. The Captain had—indulged in perhaps more brandy than was reasonable. He didn't expect a space battle, after all. It's not concussion he's got here, it's a hangover."

_Oh, I couldn't possibly know this, **could** I?_ She had to grudgingly admire Theel's resourcefulness, though. _He's a nasty piece of work, but he's not entirely stupid_. "But—but wasn't he injured in the battle?"

"He tripped and fell. Why not believe him when he says he's hard-headed?" 

_Thick-skulled, more like_. She paused as if she vacillated, staring wide-eyed straight into Theel's green eyes. "I'd feel safer if we asked a med droid's opinion. _Promise_ me you'll wait until I've brought one here? I'll go find one immediately!"

Possibly because he didn't expect her to relent so soon, possibly because he was not impervious to her large blue eyes, Theel nodded. "Of course, miss Starflare. But please hurry. We need a proper Imperial captain at the helm if we're to get out of this free and alive. I wouldn't put a surrender deal with this pirate scum past the alien-lovers in our command staff."

He was free to read her start of disgust as fear of the picture he painted, she thought, and he probably would. "I'll get the chief Too-OneBee at once," she said with a nod, watching Theel slip into Corlag's cubicle again.

_So my rank equals the Captain's in the med droids' programming? Time to make it work for me_. She stepped into the Too-OneBee's office with visions of its unrelentingly cheerful officiousness being unleashed onto Theel and Corlag. What she did not expect was the sight of a rather pale Thrawn on the examination table, his uniform jacket and shirt off, having his right arm being set in a bacta cast.

***

Piett had hastily assembled a mini honor guard of six stormtroopers and their noncom in the hangar bay, but Sansevi, after a quick salute, dismissed them. "Save that sort of thing for the Admiral. Let's see what we can do to fix things here, if at all possible."

"Yes, sir. May I introduce Lieutenant-Commander Janred, our weapons officer, and lieutenant Mikam?"

Sansevi nodded and let Piett lead the way back to the bridge. Formalities would be respected, then, although Sansevi started peppering the three of them with questions even before they entered the turbolift.

"Explain that trick with the shuttle to pull you in and out of hyperspace. Bloody expensive, but I can see where it could come in handy."

"Briefly, sir: I didn't trust in the _Revenge's structural integrity, so we rigged a spare shuttle to drag us in the cone of its hyperspace shadow. Our chief engineer will give you all the calculations."_

"Call him to the bridge. Had you tried something like it before?"

"I can't speak for the chief, sir, but not in my experience on the _Empire's Revenge."_

"You gambled, in fact?"

Piett nodded. _There goes my career down the sewage tube. _

"And what in the name of all five Sith hells was this audio call by your girlfriend?"

"Miss Starflare isn't my or anyone's girlfriend, sir," he said stiffly. "She's the holo actress. She was finished shooting a holodrama on Chandrila, and Captain Corlag invited her for the voyage back to Coruscant."

"Sir," Mikam piped up unexpectedly, "perhaps you don't remember, but the idea was to hide her identity from the pirates, otherwise they might have tried to hold her for ransom."

Eyes narrowed, Sansevi stared from Piett's suddenly frozen face to Mikam's, but all he said was "D'you mean you've got _Wynssa Starflare on board? Where is she now?"_

"I sent her back to her stateroom before the attack, sir—"

_Oh Maker. The VIP cabins were—_

"Sir, permission to send lieutenant Mikam to check on Miss Starflare at once. Her quarters were on our starboard side."

Piett could see the dismay registering on Mikam's face. "Yes, yes," Sansevi said. "I'd have wanted to meet her at any rate. Bring her back up here." As the turbolift halted at bridge level, they left Mikam inside, his hand already poised above the call panel. _If I've killed this nice girl trying to make things look better..._


	21. We're Going To Be Famous And We're Not G...

CHAPTER 21

It had felt strangely natural to hurry to his side, across the examination bed from the Too-OneBee, and to hold his left hand between hers. "What happened to you?"

Thrawn smiled faintly, but it was the chief med droid who answered. "The lieutenant's arm was broken in two places. He was being just as difficult as you about treatment. What _are_ you doing up, Miss Starflare?"

"I'm perfectly fine," she protested, at the same time that Thrawn asked, "You were injured?"

"It's nothing. I twisted my ankle, but the doctor here fixed it. Thrawn, do you realize Captain Corlag is here and Lieutenant Theel came down especially to wake him up?"

"But how—enterprising of lieutenant Theel," Thrawn said with a wince. She looked up quickly at the Too-OneBee, who was still at work on Thrawn's arm. 

"You're hurting him!"

"Lieutenant Thrawn refused a general painkiller because he didn't want his awareness reduced. I'm using local anesthetics, but they may not have 100% efficiency." 

The med droid sounded decidedly peeved, and Thrawn's good hand squeezed Wynssa's in return. The alien lieutenant asked in his usual cool voice: "How is the Captain?"

"He's not well, but he's awake. I'd hoped the doctor here could make him stay in bed."

The Too-OneBee's rich baritone managed to convey a nice blend of sarcasm and exasperation: "I'm amazed you thought such a thing, considering neither you nor the lieutenant here seem to want to comply with my instructions."

Thrawn was betrayed into a short burst of laughter, and Wynssa stared at him in wonder. "That's the first time I've ever seen you laugh."

The cool voice never wavered. "I apologize; it was undoubtedly inappropriate. Doctor, the difference is this: when Miss Starflare or myself fail to follow your directions, we merely experience discomfort. The Captain might actually be endangering his health."

She felt like kicking herself. _I've ruined the moment._ It was definitely the way to handle the med-droid, though. He was finishing Thrawn's portable cast. "That is very likely. I will go and see the Captain."

***

Mikam's white face told him the news before the junior lieutenant opened his mouth to report. "What happened?" Piett barked more harshly than he would have liked.

"The—the stateroom's _gone_, sir. Viewport cracked—open to space. I—I tried to open the door, but it was sealed—and the override wouldn't work—" The young man gulped, started again. "I hooked myself to the nearest safety point and entered the breached compartment override code—and there was _nothing_ left inside, sir—there was hardly any _inside_."

"Have you sealed the door again?" Sansevi asked.

_Good man_, Piett thought. _Straight to the point_. If he had to surrender his so-recent command, there could be worse types to defer to.

Young Mikam nodded, the shaky "Aye sir" coming out a beat later. His young face scrunched up, and Piett braced himself for tears, when Mikam's expression changed, suddenly arrested. "S—Sir?"

"Yes?"

"What—do you think will happen—when the grids find out we've— _lost_ Wynssa Starflare?"

_There's a valid question_. He could see Sansevi saw it as well. "Blast!" the captain spat. "We'll have to prepare for it. Not now; the ship's the main priority. But I'll have to let Navy Public Affairs know—and the Admiral. If I remember correctly, His Majesty attended the premiere of her latest flick. We're going to be famous—and we're not going to like it one bit."

***

She simply couldn't think of a thing to say. 

The Too-OneBee had left them to go to Captain Corlag, and Wynssa, still standing at Thrawn's side next to the medbed, found herself suddenly tongue-tied. Her hand was still holding his. She pulled it back, but he caught her fingers in a light grip before they could slip away completely from his.

"I like this color. It suits you."

She glanced down at the cuff of her jumper peeping out of the silver polar jacket sleeve, so close to their intertwined fingers. The blue was barely a shade paler than his hand, she realized, and almost the same tint as his naked, hairless chest. She suddenly felt self-conscious; no longer entirely comfortable in her cozy old travel tracksuit. Raising her eyes, she met his intent, phosphorescent gaze above a slight smile. 

"You're not going to lose your nerve now? It wouldn't be like you."

Was he talking about her unexpected shyness, or the presence of Corlag so near? She shook her head. "What do we do now?"

"Go to the bridge, I think,' he said. "I'm afraid I will require your assistance to get into my uniform."

"Should you be getting up so fast?"

"But for finding you here, being delayed in sickbay before the end of the battle would have been a complete waste of time. I was ordered down, but I don't intend to stay one minute longer than I have to."

She'd never heard this curt finality in his voice, and stared at him. "Your arm was broken!"

"I have another arm."

"But the pain—"

"I'd have no business being a soldier if I couldn't stand some amount of discomfort." He sat up and swung his long legs down the side of the medbed. "May I trouble you for my shirt and jacket, behind you?"

Wordlessly, she picked them up and laid them on the examination bed. The right shirtsleeve had been cut open, presumably by the Too-OneBee, but the uniform jacket was intact. "I'm surprised you managed to save your jacket and not your shirt," Wynssa said rather tartly, drawing a short laugh from him.

"I'm convinced you can guess why."

"You wouldn't let the doctor damage your clothes, but by the time he'd got the jacket off, you'd fainted."

"What a poor creature you must think me!"

"No, an exceptionally stubborn one."

He'd been shrugging himself into the shirt, but paused to look at her with such a warm smile that she felt herself blush. "I simply calculated nobody would see the shirt was torn once I had the jacket back on, and let it—him—have his way."

"I see. You had it all planned."

"Merely conserving my energies."

She should have found his unfailing self-assurance annoying, she reflected, but she didn't; it only increased her admiration for what she could guess of the years of rigorous self-discipline behind it. She helped him slide his arm-cast into the right sleeve of his uniform jacket. It was a very tight fit, but they managed to drag the olive-green gabardine down to his splinted wrist. With her help, he donned the jacket altogether and let her fasten it up for him, finding the invisible buttons under the front flap.

"You'll never be able to take it off on your own," she said.

Standing up next to the medbed, he was now tugging at the jacket's hem to restore it to its creaseless, officer-like state. "The situation will have moved on by that time, one way or another."

_Meaning we'll be safely on the way to Coruscant, or dead. Or a number of unpleasant options in-between_. She handed him his belt silently, helped him buckle it up. "You must think I'm making far too much of a fuss."

"I think nothing of the kind," he said in a quiet voice, taking her hand as she let go of the belt-buckle.

She fell silent and looked up into the strange red eyes. _No pupils, no white, just these almonds of glittering little prisms, somehow unmistakably expressive_.

"Well!" broke in loudly a voice she knew only too well.

Jostling past an agitated Too-OneBee, lieutenant Per Theel was staring accusingly at them from the doorway.


	22. I Saw No Point In Continuing This Boring...

CHAPTER 22

"So what was the point of Starflare's broadcast, if she wasn't your captain's girlfriend?"

Captain Sansevi, standing next to commander Piett at the tac station while Chief Engineer Bron's techs worked on the command chair, bombarded Piett with pointed questions on the _Empire's Revenge_'s procedures, having brushed aside his offer to step down immediately. "You know the situation and I need a first officer. Mordon's blasted report can wait. With a bit of luck, your captain will be in good enough shape to write it himself."

Privately, Piett thought with a sinking feeling that nothing could ensure his demotion faster; but there was no time to ponder the future. Sansevi had ordered a dozen gunnery noncoms transferred from the _Judicator_ to the _Empire's Revenge_ to assist Lieutenant-Commander Janred's depleted troops; had put Bron in charge of a team of extra techs from the larger ship after a five-minute interview conducted at machine-gun speed; and in general had taken over the running of the _Revenge_ with the kind of energetic competence Piett had for months despaired of finding in a superior officer. This had emboldened the commander to produce his own drill and shifts rota schedules, shelved by Corlag, from the recesses of his private databank in the ship's computer. Harrumphing, Sansevi had logged them and transmitted them to the new comm officer with an "effective immediately" tag. Now the _Revenge_'s new captain wanted the lowdown on their most daring move, and Piett felt he deserved the full answer.

"We'd lost the initiative against the pirate fleet, sir, and there were eighteen capital ships pounding us. One of my officers had devised a microjump tactic to hide us behind the red dwarf until you could join us with the _Judicator_, but for that we needed the pirates to let up for a moment. The idea was to make them think we were in worse shape than was the case, and ripe for boarding. So we lit up smoke flares at strategic places, and Starflare gave her little performance. It worked, too. They had to stop shooting to allow their boarding craft to get to us."

"And did they?"

"Yes, sir. Colonel Typhas's troops were ready for them. We've still got a few dozen in one of the brigs."

Sansevi looked impressed. "Bloody clever. Your idea?"

_Here's an opening to introduce young Thrawn's presence with minimum negative connotations._ Piett shook his head. "We've got an unusual junior officer, recommended by Imperial Intelligence, very bright. Sort of an experiment. It was his idea."

"A frelling _spook_?"

There was no mistaking Sansevi's disgusted scowl. _Kreth_. "No, no, nothing like that. Just an appointment recommendation, from II, not ISB. Fact is, he's a non-human. I don't know the species but—"

He was interrupted by a discreet cough from Bron, stepping away from the half-repaired command chair. "They're called Chiss, sir, pardon me for interrupting."

Sansevi looked from Bron's reticent, grizzled face to Piett's obviously intrigued one. "Never heard of 'em. Tell us more."

Bron wiped the engine grease from his hand on the leg of his overalls before running it through his short-cropped iron-gray hair. "I don't know much more, sir. Met some of them in the Rim in my time, and they were a rarity even there. Come from some place in the Unknown regions, keep to themselves, don't like traveling outside their systems. Cold buggers, sorta formal, but very quick on the uptake, sir. Their ship had broken down on—well, you wouldn't know the place, but they were stuck, and I helped them rig up an engine. Knew nothing of our hyperdrive theory, but they cottoned on to it real quick. This one's younger than the ones I met, and he's a sort of odd fish. Saved my gullet all the same."

_So that's why Thrawn's "the kid" to Bron_. "How do you mean, an odd fish?" Piett asked at the same time that Sansevi said: "Saved your gullet?" 

The captain gave a short laugh. "Hadn't pegged you for someone who'd let questions go unanswered on his watch, Piett." He considered the chief engineered with an appraising eye. "Go on, man, out with it."

Bron's ice-blue eyes flickered from one superior officer to the other. The chief engineer prudently chose to answer the captain first. "Some of the pirates took hostages, me and a cadet. Lieutenant Thrawn negotiated us out. And—I'd say he's an odd sort because all the Chiss I've seen were in groups, don't seem to like taking decisions alone, defer to their elders all the time. This one's a loner."

_Defer to their elders, do they?_ "Would that be why Lieutenant Thrawn addresses you as _Ta Chuba_, chief? Because you'd met older Chiss?" Piett asked.

A flicker of surprise crossed Bron's guarded features. "You speak Huttese, sir?"

"Never mind that."

"Well—yes, sir. Rather, because I'd _taught_ elder Chiss. Teaching's pretty respected in their culture, didn't matter that it was all informal at the time."

"Well, well!" Sansevi said. "And where's your odd fish now, Piett? He sounds like an interesting addition to the staff."

_That he certainly is_. "Sickbay, sir. He got wounded in the last attack, but I imagine he'll be back soon enough. I had to order him there. In fact the chief here pointed out he was injured—he'd managed to hide it from me. Chief, d'you have any idea why Lieutenant Thrawn didn't want to get treatment for his arm? Afraid our Emdees wouldn't know what to do with him?"

Bron shook his head. "I wouldn't think so, sir. From what I've seen, the lieutenant would have felt responsible for what happened in the attack, and their tradition doesn't allow them to get any kind of help before they've corrected their mistakes."

_And we think we're tough_. Piett exchanged a look with Sansevi. He never knew whether the new captain shared that opinion. At the end of the bridge stairs, the main turbolift doors opened, revealing the bandaged head of captain Corlag.

***

"_Well_! Captain Corlag will hear of this!"

"Lieut—"

Dismayed at Per Theel's unwelcome appearance, Wynssa tried to snatch her hand away from Thrawn's own. With a comforting squeeze, he held onto it, cutting short what she was about to say. Amazing, really, how little it took to dissolve her apprehensions into this strangely safe feeling. She knew she shouldn't let herself get used to it—surely it would all explode in her face soon enough. _This guy has his work cut out already; he doesn't need my battles to fight in addition to his_. Still, it made her all buoyant and—happy. _And stupid, my girl_.

"Really?" Thrawn interrupted, his voice cold as space. "I fail to see how this will help your defense."

Wynssa nearly jumped—she'd never heard such icy contempt in his tone. Theel turned on Thrawn like an enraged reek. "My _what_? Who do you think you are, you sub-human scum—"

Thrawn's voice cut like a cryo-lash: "You deserted your station under fire, Theel. That's a court-martial offense—_if_ Admiral Mordon feels like wasting a firing-squad's power packs on you. He may just leave your fate up to Lord Vader."

"I came here to save our ship from traitors like bloody Piett and trash like you! Your alien-loving tramp tried to stop us, but Captain Corlag is on his way to the bridge as we—"

Wynssa barely felt her fingers being released: a blue stun bolt from Thrawn's blaster, fired unerringly with his left hand, cut Theel short, and the lieutenant fell heavily to the ground, unconscious. She stared open-mouthed at the inert body, then at Thrawn.

"I saw no point in continuing this boring conversation," he said lightly. "Doctor, I suggest you keep Mr. Theel heavily sedated when he comes to. I don't have time to have him taken to the brig, and our troopers are rather busy. The battle isn't over yet."

The Too-OneBee was already clucking over Theel's prostrate form. "This is extremely irregular. The sick-bay is not a detainment center—"

"Neither is it designed to accommodate another few hundred wounded in addition to the ones you treated earlier today. The presence of this imbecile anywhere near the bridge would make it a lot likelier."

Having summoned a repulsor stretcher, the chief med-droid proceeded to slide Theel's body onto its hovering platform. "He was here earlier, and gave signs of agitation when he saw me treating a non-human prisoner, a Dug," he said somewhat prissily. "Very well, I'll keep him here, but please rid me of him as soon as possible."

_Wonders'll never cease_. Thrawn must have glimpsed something of Wynssa's awe at his easy management of the Too-OneBee, because he smiled. "Ah, yes, the Dug. Where is he now? Back in the lower-level brig with the others?"

"No, I kept him under observation. He wasn't in too bad a shape, but he was making himself useful here. You should find him in the second ward."

The blue-black eyebrows briefly froze. "Thank you, doctor, I believe I'll collect him now. I might have a use for him in a few moments."


	23. For Instance, He Forgot To Tell Me He Sp...

CHAPTER 23 

     One step back from the conflagration, Commander Piett watched in some awe Captains Sansevi and Corlag locked in the loudest shouting match he could remember ever witnessing on any ship in his career. He could see the techs and lower ranks in both crew pits staring up curiously, not to mention the bridge officers throwing barely covert glances. In normal circumstances, he would have called everyone sharply to order, but these were far from normal circumstances, and part of him was guiltily enjoying the scene. Corlag had the brute mass advantage, but Sansevi's was obviously the better form. "The state of unreadiness of your crew is a disgrace! No wonder you took casualties, you were too busy drinking and gallivanting with holostars to drill them properly!"

     "You little freller, you have _no_ authority on my ship!"

     "If you hadn't been sleeping off your latest hangover instead of leading the battle, you'd have heard Admiral Mordon _giving_ me authority!"

     "You lousy little desk-jockey, you think you can  hide behind—"

     Piett tore himself regretfully away. "Lieutenant Dorja, how's that sensor report coming on? What d'you _think_ you're looking at, gunning-sergeant Rekos? If you've got so much free time on your hands, I suggest you give Lieutenant Mikam a readiness report for your crew pit batteries, _now_. That goes for _you_ too, Rotham—d'you think these pirates are just going to flip over and make nice?"

     "Sir! Sir, we're getting a transmission from—it looks like it's from one of the _Judicator_'s TIEs, but it's got a first-rank command override," Dorja's puzzled voice called back.

     _Why is Dorja fielding— Of course, poor Casrah bought it, and Thrawn isn't back from sickbay_. A cold shiver ran down Piett's spine. He had a good notion of who was calling them. He glanced at the two captains still at it at full throttle, inwardly sighed, and signaled to Dorja. "Patch it over here."

     As he more than half expected, the tac console viewspace revealed an unmoving, grisly black mask, all death-head-like gleaming planes and grilles. "Sir... er, my lord?"

     "How many TIE squadrons have you got in readiness?"

     The voice was even more chilling than the mask, Piett thought. Deep, vocoder-mechanical, inhuman, punctuated by Vader's regular, oddly-amplified breathing. He was never more relieved to find his training taking over smoothly. "All six squadrons, my lord, in three wings."

     "Launch them. I am sending comlink frequencies on which I want them to report to me."

     "Acknowledged, my lord, and understood."

     The black mask disappeared from the viewspace with no warning. "Get me TIE control," Piett ordered. Yes, new frequencies had been transmitted in an encrypted burst to the _Empire's Revenge_ comm system. He sent them on to the TIE colonel who answered his call, already in his flightsuit and helmet under his arm, he noted. _Of course they're in readiness—Corlag had sent them out and I recalled them. At least Lord Vader won't have to complain of any delays._ "I need not tell you of Lord Vader's authority at his Majesty's side. Glory to the Empire and good hunting, Colonel," he concluded, hoping the Emperor's Sith lord wasn't as wasteful of his pilots' lives as he'd known Corlag to be. _At least he flies with them_.

     But his activity had finally attracted the feuding captains' attention. "What the frell d'you think you're _doing_, Piett?" Corlag barked.

     Piett quickly glanced from the alarmingly red-faced Corlag to a thin-lipped but calmer-looking Sansevi. "Lord Vader hailed us to order our TIE squadrons launched at once, sir. I've just done so," he answered, staring at a point at shoulder height precisely between the two commanding officers. 

     "You've _what_?" Corlag shouted at the same time that Sansevi said "Well done, Commander Piett." Enraged, Corlag turned on the other captain, but this time Sansevi's voice cut like a vibroblade. "This nonsense has lasted long enough. You are formally relieved of command. I don't especially _want_ to have you removed from this bridge under arrest but believe me, I'm getting more reconciled to the idea by the minute. Commander, will you request Colonel Tyfas to send up a squad of troopers?"

     Piett could almost find it in him to be sorry for Corlag's public loss of face. _Al-most. If it weren't for all those good men who died_. He raised a hand at Dorja to comm Tyfas. At that precise moment, an out-of-control TIE careened so close to the port viewport that everyone on the bridge instinctively ducked. An instant later, the doomed fighter crashed into the hull bare meters from the port sensor array, exploding into a ball of fire. Lord Vader, it seemed, had brought the starfighter battle straight to them.

     ***

     In the first seventeen years of her life on her parents' Gus Treta refueling station, Wynssa had never seen a Dug, much less a pirate one, and she couldn't help sneaking looks at the spidery creature limping at their side, wristbinders shackled by a short leash to Thrawn's belt. "_Na ta chura hzeke holo porko Wynza Ssstarflare_," the Dug suddenly hissed, and she jumped back.

     "_Ek, eika tori bazda waheta_," Thrawn replied easily.

     "_What_ did you say?"

     "Sebulba here thinks you look like the holo actress, Wynssa Starflare. I told him you get that a lot."

     "I—" She caught his meaningful look. "Ah—is that his name? Sebulba?"

     "So he tells me. He's been less than forthright about a few other things, though, so I wouldn't make too much of it, would I, my friend?"

     "Ttttold you everytthhhhhing, but no longer on our sssship. Tthhhingss chhhange fassst."

     She started at the sound of the Dug's sibilant, but perfectly understandable Basic. "For instance, he _forgot_ to tell me he spoke Basic," Thrawn continued with a satisfied smirk. The Dug spat something that sounded like _Yoka to bantha poodoo!_ and Thrawn yanked his lead once, hard, making him trip on two of his chitinous legs. "Keep it decent, and don't think I forget where you come from. If you want to stay this side of the hull, you'll have to prove us you're worth the inconvenience. Do I make myself clear?"

     ***

     Piett and Sansevi leaned in, eyes riveted on the tactical holo beamed to the bridge main display. The TIEs' red dots cut a reckless swathe through the serrated blue wings of pirate Uglies, cutting off small groups of fighters to engage them one by one. Piett watched one starfighter angling an impossible turn from under an enemy cluster, then picking out three Uglies in rapid succession, almost like on a fighting range. _Except that he's doing it at two klicks per second and five Gs gravity_. That particular red dot wove under another pirate formation and started systematically demolishing it with fierce quad laser jabs, dancing  all the while among the harried enemy craft. Seized with the irrepressible need to confirm a growing conviction, Piett tweaked the console's controls. Sure enough, the lethal TIE's dot alone started blinking with a distinctive golden halo, indicating the presence of a hyperdrive. _Vader's_. 

     "Oh, there's indeed a point to all the hokey stuff," he heard Sansevi's voice say next to him. "Just this kind of flying might make it all worth it, if _he_ didn't—"

     _If he didn't—?_

     The _Judicator_ captain's eyes flickered left and right before he answered Piett's unformulated question in a tense undertone. "You don't want to bring Lord Vader news of failure. Or even to be slow with reports of success. I lost four bridge officers in the past six months. One at least was a good man who drew the wrong lot at the wrong time."

     Piett felt a cold dead weight constricting his chest. "The wrong lot?"

     "They'd draw lots to decide who would bring Lord Vader the less pleasant news when I wasn't personally on duty. Not always, you understand; but I never forbade it—it was bad enough that I was powerless to shield them."

     I_ ought to have known there's worse than mopping up after Corlag_. "How do you stand it?" he asked bluntly.

     "Not much choice, is there? And—" The other captain mopped his brow despite the bridge's strictly-controlled temperature. "Lord Vader is capable. Short-tempered and unpredictable, but—more than competent, in his scary way." Sansevi's lowered his voice even more. "Look at your TIE squadrons. Notice anything?"

     Piett focused his attention on the tactical holo again for a moment. "I'm not sure I can tell them apart," he said slowly. "They're—completely _integrated_." He turned to face Sansevi. "You know how unprepared we are, sir. I wish I could take credit for our pilots' coordination, but I don't see how I can. What's going on _out there_?"


	24. Never Tell Us The Odds

CHAPTER 24 

     Finding herself once again trudging up the steps to the main bridge, Wynssa felt weary and self-conscious. Her ankle had started throbbing again, and she was no Thrawn to dismiss it airily as "some amount of discomfort." She was tired, she hated to think what she must look like after practically two days on her feet, and she felt distinctly uneasy at the idea of coming across Captain Corlag again. She stole a side-glance at Thrawn as he led the shackled Dug up the stairs. Depending on how things had evolved since Piett took over, he could be facing a court-martial; but no hint of any misgivings showed on his firm profile. His olive-green uniform looked as if it had just been pressed—_how_ did he manage that? —and there was almost a spring in his step as he reached the command walkway. As if he'd sensed her gaze, he paused very briefly, flashing a quick smile of encouragement at her. "Onstage, Miss Starflare!" he murmured under his breath before striding toward the command post.

     _Not much choice but to tag along, have I?_ She straightened her shoulders, tossed back her hair and followed him.

***

     Rory Mikam was the first to spot the trio crossing the command walkway. His youthful voice shouted across the bridge "_Wynssa!_" in complete disregard of regulations—it was obvious only the sketchiest hold on his sense of discipline prevented him from running straight to the arriving group. Piett turned away from the tactical holo, feeling more than seeing Sansevi's raised eyebrow, and made a conscious decision not to call the kid on it. Besides, the appearance, in addition to the famous holostar believed lost in space, of an unruffled Thrawn leading on an even more exotic alien, should divert the new captain's interest soon enough. Wynssa Starflare, Commander Piett noticed, had changed into smart designer ice-blue overalls and a light silver parka, but her smile seemed a little forced. Then she heard Mikam, and her face lit up as she caught the junior lieutenant's eye behind the relay weapons status station. _So that's how the land lies, is it? I'd have thought—_

     Sansevi, watching the new arrivals' progress, seemed to have reached the same conclusion. "Has that woman _no_ sense of hierarchy?"

     "I expect they're about the same age," Piett said in an apologetic undertone, unable to entirely contain his amusement. "Must be a relief from a solid week of dinners with Captain Corlag."

     "Great stars! I take your point!" Sansevi expostulated with feeling. "And _that_'s your odd man out? What's he got with him?"

     "Pirate prisoner. He'll tell us why he's brought it up here, I expect." Piett turned to the trio. "Lieutenant Thrawn, you will report to Captain Sansevi, formerly of the _Judicator_, who's been assigned to relieve Captain Corlag. Miss Starflare, allow me to tell you how relieved we are to find you in good health. Your cabin was entirely destroyed. May I introduce Captain Sansevi?"

     Thrawn had frozen at full parade attention after a smart salute. Wynssa stared from Piett to the newcomer. "How do you do, Captain," she said politely.

     "So you're the actress, are you? Thought it would be a good idea to cruise back to Coruscant courtesy of the Imperial Navy?"

     Piett's eyebrows shot up. _This might become—_

     "No, I thought it was a rotten idea, but I let myself to be overruled by Captain Corlag's insistence and by my agent's misguided notions of what would help my publicity. Please believe me when I tell you it is a mistake I do not plan to repeat."

     Rigorously suppressing his own reaction, Piett caught a fleeting glimmer of pride in Thrawn's strange eyes. _Aha! So I wasn't wrong there after all._ Sansevi, meanwhile, was considering the holostar with renewed interest. "Got the scare of your life, did you? We heard your audio call."

     The bright blue eyes flashed. "I did think I might get killed, but that was later. The audio broadcast was scripted. To fool the pirates. I _never_—"

     "I must take responsibility for the broadcast, sir," Thrawn broke in. "I wrote it."

     Sansevi's piercing black eyes glowered at the alien junior officer. "I don't remember asking you a question, lieutenant," he snapped. "You were saying, Miss Starflare?"

     "Well—that was it," Wynssa stammered, suddenly looking abashed. Sansevi's eyes narrowed, darting from her to Thrawn, but the captain just asked: "And what's that here?"

     "This is the pirate boarding craft pilot, a Dug who calls himself Sebulba, sir," Thrawn said as smoothly as if Sansevi hadn't rebuked him before. "I believe he can give us information on the threat we're facing."

     Sansevi turned to consider Thrawn silently for a long minute. The younger man didn't flinch, but Piett caught Wynssa's eye in time, shaking his head fractionally to warn her from interfering. Finally the captain said: "You're a—Chiss, aren't you? How familiar are you people with his kind?"

     Thrawn's eyes glittered, but he answered composedly. "No more familiar than with humans or Hutts, sir. They're from the Outer Rim, found on a dozen worlds, no known homeworld. Very quick reflexes, good pilots, usually independents or mercenaries."

     If Sansevi was unhappy at hearing humans and Hutts being lumped together, he showed no noticeable sign of it. "So what makes you think we should trust this one, lieutenant?"

     "I don't especially trust him, sir, but it would not be in his interest to deceive us. The rest of the bunch is slated for the spice mines of Kessel, but I'll personally space this one if I find out he's been lying to me once again."

     Sansevi raised an eyebrow. "Am I to understand he's lied to you _before_?"

     "Forgetting to mention information is lying, sir," Thrawn said flatly. "He won't live to do it again."

     _Cold bastard_, Piett thought. He noticed the holoactress's frozen expression. _Enjoy the reviews and the uniform, do you? But are you really ready for what they mean?_ He liked Wynssa Starflare well enough, but warships weren't drawing rooms. Corlag had been an idiot to invite her, not that this came as a surprise. _Where has the fat windbag disappeared? I better check—_

     "I tttold you tttruthhh! I even gave you thhhe dddatadissssk!"

     Surprised, Piett and Sansevi stared at the hissing Dug. "What datadisk?" the captain barked.

     With two fingers of his left hand, Thrawn pulled a small disk from his breast pocket, handing it to Sansevi. "This came up while I interrogated the pirates, sir. I'd had some of them patched up in sickbay after our people, and it would seem our friend here stole this from Captain Corlag's cubicle while the captain, ah, slept—"

     "I'm aware of Captain Corlag's state," Sansevi cut in. "What's on it?"

     "I don't know yet, sir," Thrawn said. "You'll see from the interrogation tapes that there was no time to play it."

     "Ottthhher lieutenant brought it," the Dug said. "I tthhhhhought it wasss vvaluable, but I ggave ittt back!"

     "That would be lieutenant Theel, who came to visit the captain," Thrawn explained. "But the reason I brought Sebulba here is to identify the pirate leaders and their tactics." The alien lieutenant dragged the Dug to the tactical holo. "You told me your fleet was commanded by a Duros, but it's not, is it? You have several commanders. Who and what are they?"

     "We called othhhhersss. Afffter sssecond Desssstroyer comesss. We ssssplit takingsss, sssso we waited befffore calling fffor help. Thhisss ssssecond group—here, thhhey's Krell'n."

     "Krell'n?" Sansevi asked.

     _Not all Duros after all, were they?_ "Must mean Corellians," Piett said. "Lieutenant?"

     Uncharacteristically, Thrawn didn't answer immediately. He and the Dug were both staring at the tactical holo. A pair of seconds later, the junior lieutenant seemed to snap back to his usual alertness. "Sir?"

     "These Krell'n pirates, does he mean Corellians?"

     "Ah—very likely, sir."

     _What's eating him now?_ Piett wasn't surprised by Thrawn noticing the TIEs' unusual performance on the holo, but surely the Dug knew nothing of the starfighter squadrons' relative state of preparedness? Turning to Sansevi, the First Officer took in Wynssa Starflare's still dismayed look. _Something's going on here, but I haven't got time to go into it all._

     "Well, lieutenant? Is that a yes or a no?" Sansevi snapped.

     "Yes, sir, he does mean Corellians. They're regrouping now. They've been surprised by something, and it's hurting their coordination. I'd say it was the _Revenge_'s escape, and now the TIE attacks. There's some—unconventional flying going on there. But—"

     " 'But', lieutenant Thrawn?"

     "The reprieve's not going to last much longer, sir. Corellians are individualists, they understand unconventionality, they can factor it in fairly quickly. And now that our two ships have rejoined, they know they're facing a higher risk. For a Corellian, that's extra motivation."

     "You have experience with Corellians, lieutenant?"

     Piett saw Thrawn pause for an instant, and held his breath. _If he goes into his art theories again..._

     "A—some, sir."

     "Never tell us the odds."

     Surprised by the interruption, all three officers turned to the holostar. "Never tell us the odds," Wynssa Starflare repeated. "It's a Corellian saying. I'm Corellian myself. We pride ourselves in liking challenges."

     There was a light in her blue eyes, and Piett fancied that it dared Sansevi to retort he didn't recall asking her. _Growing an imaginative streak, are we?_ he chided himself inwardly. At any rate, the captain didn't rise to the bait, imagined or otherwise. "How does he know which group are the Corellians?"

     It was a fair question, and Piett, once more, admired Sansevi's capacity to cut to the heart of the matter. The initial ship groupings were long gone, and all pirate craft showed equally green on the tactical holo.

     "_Ek ma?_" Thrawn prodded the prisoner.

     "_Na werna toha, krell'n ta huta teesa roheh. Sang illo chawa, neh?_"

     Eyes narrowed, Piett stared at the creature. Before he could frame his question, Sansevi snapped "What did he say?"

     "He's a pilot himself, sir, he says he can tell from the flight patterns," Thrawn translated. "He was also surprised by one of the TIE pilots—it would seem he's seen his flying style before. _Ta rokea ha chuba?_"

     The Dug held out a forelimb to grasp the light pointer, and trained it at the tactical holo, stabbing at the golden-haloed red dot.


End file.
